


Reign of the Fire Lady Dowager

by SnakeStaff



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And Ozai Too, Because Why Wouldn't She, But Really Torn Up, Dark Ursa, F/M, Fire Lady Ursa, Fire Lord Zuko, Fire Nation Lore (Avatar), Fire Nation Politics (Avatar), Fire Nation Royal Family, Gen, Imperialist Ursa, Iroh (Avatar) is a Good Uncle, Moral Ambiguity, Protective Ursa, Ursa (Avatar) is a Good Parent, Ursa Kills Azulon, she tries at least, technically, ursa is a firebender
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:53:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29222730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnakeStaff/pseuds/SnakeStaff
Summary: Princess Ursa has already murdered one member of the Royal Family to protect her precious son. What is one more? And what is the burden of a throne, next to his safety?
Relationships: Azula & Ursa (Avatar), Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Iroh & Ursa (Avatar), Ursa & Ozai (Avatar), Ursa & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 134
Kudos: 281





	1. Prologue: Death in the Night

“The deed,” Princess Ursa said in a low, quiet voice, “is done.”

Prince Ozai’s study occupied the single largest room of their shared family villa. It was, by choice, a dark and gloomy place only just illuminated enough by the overhanging lanterns to see by. The Fire Lord’s second, disfavored son had a black and gold chair that bore more than a little resemblance to a throne seated behind a desk of immaculately polished cherry wood and onyx, trimmed with stylized golden flames, where he normally enjoyed entertaining courtiers and guests with his face cast in shadow. But unusually, he was not to be found there tonight.

Instead, the prince lurked in the deepest shadows towards the very back of the massive room, where the entire wall was covered by shelves stacked high with tomes and scrolls and maps, not far from a plinth upon which rested a beautiful scale model of the Fire Nation Royal Palace, sculpted and painted to his exacting specifications over five years ago. Ozai scarcely so much as glanced behind him as his wife slipped inside, her soft shoes barely making a sound on the wooden floor. There were no creaking boards in the prince’s personal space, of that he had made quite sure.

“I trust that you have taken care of the rest, then?” she continued, closing the door almost inaudibly behind her and walking slowly towards the prince.

“The scribes have duly recorded the last-minute changes to my father’s will,” her husband confirmed with the faintest of nods. “Come the morning, _I_ will be crowned the new Fire Lord,” he took a deep breath, obviously savoring the moment.

Behind him, Ursa frowned but kept on walking closer to him.

“And our son’s life will be spared,” he added after a few seconds, as if that fact was a mere afterthought.

“I am… pleased to hear it,” she allowed herself to breathe a loud sigh of relief as she neared him, before switching to her most serious tone. “You _will_ watch over them, then?”

“It will be as we agreed,” Prince Ozai replied in a faintly condescending voice. “You will leave the capital tonight and never return. The children will remain here with me as collateral, and as long as you honor our accord, then you have my word that no harm will come to either of them.”

Ursa did not believe him. The man who had been fully prepared to murder his own son with nary a word of protest mere hours before, the man who would betray his only brother over the still-cooling corpse of his nephew without hesitation and murder his father for the sake of power rather than love simply could not be trusted. He would never honor an agreement with a mere exiled wife who’d outlived her usefulness, who had no means of enforcing anything on the new Fire Lord. Leaving her precious little Zuko in _this_ man’s hands…

That was why she had brewed more than one dose of poison this night. Ozai would never be such a fool as to accept food or drink from her as Azulon had, of course. But just as there were many types of toxin, so too were there many ways of delivering them. Such as the one currently concealed in the long, flowing sleeve of her elaborate formal robe.

“Then… that is all?” she asked, taking one more wary, silent step towards him.

“Of course it is,” he said at once. “Leave this place.”

Ursa should not have been even mildly surprised, much less disappointed. “We’ve… been married for more than twelve years now, Ozai.”

“And?” he sounded mildly irritated, eyes firmly fixed on the sculpture of the palace he had dreamed of making his own for so long. “You and I have nothing more to say to each other, and no business left between us. Be gone from here immediately.”

He didn’t even bother to face her for a final goodbye. Why would he? To Ozai, Ursa was merely the meek, submissive little wife that he’d held under his thumb for years. She was a weak firebender in her own right, valuable only for her bloodline. What was such a sad, helpless woman, barely a bender at all, to him? She, who loved her weakling runt of a firstborn so very much, could in the end do nothing to defy her prince’s wishes for the boy. Even their little girl knew who truly ruled in their family, knew that her father’s approval was everything.

Ozai loved no one but himself. He didn’t understand the idea of it at all, save as a weakness that he could exploit. No one with even a trace of humanity left in his heart could have thought that making a blatant power play against his grieving brother on the very day he had received word of his nephew’s demise could turn out anything but poorly. But all he had seen in Lu Ten’s death was an opportunity to make a grab for the throne. That was all he now saw in Ursa’s frantic desperation to protect her son. His own arrogance and greed, as ever, blinded him to the dangers.

Consenting to the princess’ plan to kill the Fire Lord had been a mistake on his part. Sending her to serve the poisoned tea in person, rather than risk himself, had compounded it. For, as Ursa had watched the light fade from Azulon’s eyes while his servants lowered him into bed, had seen the old man lie back against his pillow for the last time as if to sleep, a revelation had come upon the unassuming, gentle granddaughter of Avatar Roku.

So much good could come from the right deaths.

“Then I suppose,” the princess spoke softly, using the sound of her voice to mask the faint rustle of silk as she reached carefully into her sleeve, “that this is farewell.”

The blade struck with a speed and strength even Ursa hadn’t known she’d had. She closed the short distance between them in a split second. Before Ozai even had a chance to blink, razor-edged, poison-coated steel, driven by a mother’s all-consuming need to protect what was hers, pierced the back of his neck. It plunged right through his skin and muscle, sliced deeply into bone underneath, and severed the nerves within. The mighty prince, the all-powerful tyrant who had ruled over her life for so many years, simply gasped and collapsed like a mere puppet with his strings cut, hitting the floor with a dull thud.

The princess blinked. She hadn’t thought… she hadn’t _dared_ to believe that it would be so easy. She had entered this room fully prepared to perish in fire as her husband’s last act of vengeance, as long as it would save her little ones. The substance thoroughly coating her dagger was the single deadliest one that the master herbalist knew of, even the slightest nick would have been enough to kill Ozai in short order. But there it was, plain as day. The man who could plausibly claim to be the greatest firebender left in the world, lying sprawled out on the ground, her envenomed dagger embedded deep between his shoulder blades, penetrating his spine. Blood oozed slowly from the wound, staining his rich robes an even darker shade of red.

“Ursa…” Ozai was staring up at her as best his twisted neck could manage, face contorted in shock. “You…”

“You didn’t…” the princess actually laughed, a high-pitched giggle tinged with equal parts hysteria and relief. “You didn’t guess? You didn’t see?”

The only response he could manage came in the form of a shuddering gasp.

“I killed Fire Lord Azulon to protect my son,” she told him, stifling one last giggle at how simultaneously absurd and liberating the moment was. “ _You_ were the one who was going to kill him without a second thought. What made you think I couldn’t do the same to you?”

“You… treasonous…” his baleful eyes might once have been fearsome, but now they only appeared pathetic to her. He coughed wetly. Speckles of drool mixed with blood sprayed across the polished wooden floor.

“No more than you, Ozai,” she said, looming over him. “The difference is that I did it for my son. You only ever did it for yourself. Oh and…” after all these years of watching this horrible man berate and abuse her poor sweet boy, she couldn’t resist the urge to return a small portion of it, “that _I’ve_ won.”

The prince snarled furiously, and she knew that if he could have lunged up and strangled her with his bare hands in that moment, he would have.

“You will never be Fire Lord,” Ursa said, kneeling down beside her husband and running her manicured fingernails gently through his long black hair. “You will _never_ lay a finger on my son.” She paused. “You will never poison my daughter with your lies again.” She smiled serenely down at the dying man. “May Agni condemn your soul.”

If Ozai had any final words to say, they would never be known. All that emerged from the prince’s mouth was a gargled hiss and a trickle of crimson that ran down his chin. He glared hatefully up at his wife one last time, his final expression one of incandescent rage. Then his head slumped to the floor, and the spark faded from his golden eyes. And so, the man who might have become the greatest evil the world had seen in centuries was instead slain by treachery, his twisted ambitions left forever unfulfilled.

The princess sat back a moment and simply stared at the body, at the blood sluggishly oozing from it. That was really it, then. Her husband, her captor, her child’s tormentor, really was lying there dead on the floor. She really had killed him, just as she’d killed Azulon. She’d never have to listen to his cruel voice shred Zuko’s eager little spirit ever again. She’d never have to lay eyes on that horrible smile that crossed his face when Azula stole her brother’s belongings and burned them.

Ursa wondered if she ought to feel some sense of loss, some pang of sadness for the glimmers of a true man that had once existed in her husband, before he’d allowed his envy, his greed, and his bitterness to choke them out forever. But she didn’t. All she felt, in that moment, was a profound sense of release, a deep pain long weighing on her heart finally dissipating like a morning fog burned away by the rising sun. She’d done it. Her boy… no, _both_ her children were safe now, even if the worst should happen to her. Iroh was not like Ozai or Azulon – he would take care of his brother’s orphans if need be. Lu Ten had grown into a fine young man under him, after all.

But now that she’d survived the deed itself, there was no reason that the worst had to happen. The princess had long been known around the palace as a pleasant, soft, motherly woman who loved small animals and her gardens, enjoyed poetry, flowers, paints, and theater. Even if she seemed slightly sad sometimes, there was nothing that would suggest to anyone that such a sweet, gentle lady might become a murderer. She wasn’t even trained to use her modest firebending for combat. No one save for the dead Azulon and Ozai, along with her underage children, would ever know that she’d had any reason at all to turn on her marital family.

The princess rose slowly to her feet, taking a deep breath while she composed herself. If she wanted to sell this story to the palace, to the nobility that would no doubt be working itself into a fit the moment the news broke, the scene would have to be set just right. She checked her robes and skin carefully, making sure there wasn’t so much as a spot of blood on them. Then with just a little effort, she conjured tears into her eyes from the abundance of them she’d held back for so long. She carefully allowed just a handful to trickle down her cheeks, smearing a little of her makeup. Finally, she opened the nearest door just wide enough, before throwing back her head and unleashing an earsplitting scream.

Agni knew Azula hadn’t gotten her acting talent from her _father_ , after all.

“ **Guards!** ” Ursa shrieked, in her best hysterical wife voice. “Guards! Help! An assassin has struck!” She raced outside into the hallway, one hand clutching her chest, the other waving frantically. “Guards!”


	2. The Little Prodigy

Princess Azula had gone to bed that night with high expectations for the future. It was disappointing that Father’s immediate bid for the throne had been shot down, yes, but the results looked good for her anyway, no matter how the dice fell in the end. If Father went ahead and fulfilled Grandfather’s demand, then she would be left as the only eventual heir to the Dragon Throne. Uncle would never remarry after he had lost Aunt Lu Rin to childbirth, and no child Mother might possibly conceive in the future could possibly rival the likes of her, not with the head start she had. Even better, with her weakling older brother out of the way Ursa would have no more choice but to favor her daughter, just as Ozai did. She’d get the status, the power, and the undivided affection from both parents instead of just one. It was such a _pity_ that Zuzu would have to die for all of that to come true. Ah well, he couldn’t claim she hadn’t done her sisterly duty in giving him fair warning.

On the other hand, it was just possible that Mom might be able to make a plea pathetic enough to convince the Fire Lord to accept her life in place of her son’s. While that wasn’t quite as good, with Ursa gone Azula would be left as the undisputed favorite of the house, and the few restrictions on her behavior that Mom had managed to get Dad to accept would be gone in no time. Without his one constant protector, her brother would be even easier prey than before. Maybe she’d take that general’s knife that Uncle had sent Zuko next. Sissies like him didn’t deserve war trophies anyway.

Finally, there was the last option, a little less enjoyable than the first two but still a step up for Azula. Mom just _might_ work up the spine to take her favorite child and simply flee the capital before Dad could do the deed. If Ozai felt exceptionally generous, perhaps as a reward for providing him with such a perfect daughter, he might give the two of them a head start before dispatching hunters. Getting rid of Ursa’s rules wouldn’t be quite as much fun without little Zuzu to kick around, but she’d still be left as the only heir standing and be free from her mother’s undeserved favoritism.

The very snug and quite smug little princess had settled into her cool silk sheets for the night with a twisted smile on her face, dreaming dreams of power, glory, and new heights of favor. Whatever happened, she had expected that tomorrow would be a very good day indeed.

What she _hadn’t_ expected was to be awakened in the middle of the night by a quartet of Imperial Firebenders bursting into her room with all the grace of an enraged bull komodo rhino.

“Princess Azula?!” one of the masked, faceless guards asked, voice laced with urgency. “Are you alright?”

“…Whuh?” the little girl yawned and stretched, blinking a few times.

“Are you well, princess?” the soldier repeated, as he and his comrades fanned out across the room. They were in firebending poses, part of her slowly awakening mind noted, and for some reason they were pulling back the curtains and checking the inside of her closet.

“Of course…” Azula gave another big yawn. “Of course I’m okay,” she sat up in bed. “Why _wouldn’t_ I be?”

“Apologies, princess,” the man said, though even half-asleep she noted that he didn’t bow as he should. “We’re under orders to escort you outside without delay. There’s been an incident.”

Ah. Sent by Father, then, to keep up appearances after doing the deed. It was fitting, she supposed as she squirmed towards the edge of her bed, that she should have an entourage of palace guards as she left to “learn” of her new status as the sole heir of her generation. Still, couldn’t they have waited until morning?

“Alright, fine,” she gave one final yawn, then hopped nimbly off her bed, slipping on some light, comfortable shoes. “Take me to him, then.”

“Him?” one of the other soldiers asked the first.

“Move, don’t talk,” the original speaker replied. “This is no time for chitchat.”

Azula cocked her head slightly but happened to agree and so said nothing. She allowed the peons to lead her through the silent, darkened halls of her family’s villa, though to her mild surprise they weren’t heading towards the exits. Instead, she was being taken towards the central courtyard that played host to their personal gardens. A bit of an odd choice of locale, but this whole thing was playing out a little differently than she’d expected.

The princess wasn’t surprised to see that the garden was positively swarming with the elite red and gold armored guards of the Royal Procession, at least two dozen of them at first glance. What was a surprise was the sight of both Mom _and_ Zuko already there, sitting on a bench by a pond and surrounded by six firebenders, all looking outwards. Alongside them stood a grey-haired man in a firebending officer’s uniform, holding his helmet at his side. She recognized Palace Commander Aiguo, a veteran of one of Azulon’s last personal campaigns in the field and current head of the Imperial Firebenders. He was a stolid and reliable man who considered himself bound by silly things like warrior codes and honor, which was why Father said Grandfather kept him around despite his advancing years. Rumor had it he’d once saved Azulon’s life during a particularly close call with an earthbender ambush.

Azula was stuck for a moment trying to figure out what was going on, until she noticed that Zuko was heaving and sobbing like a big baby into Mom’s chest, and that Ursa’s own face was stained with tears. Father or Grandfather had decided to make the execution a public one, then? A bit of an odd choice for a member of the Royal Family, however weak, but there could be reasons for it. She was sure Dad would explain it once he’d arrived and poor little Zuzu was dead.

“Azula,” her mother breathed a sigh of relief, looking at her with tears and smudged makeup running down her cheeks as she approached, “thank Agni you’re alright.”

 _Oh, you don’t have to worry about me,_ she thought with a smile on her face, picturing herself being undividedly doted on by both Mother _and_ Father and loving every second of it.

“Well of course I’m alright,” she said in a light tone, walking over to her mother’s side with a spring in her step. “Why shouldn’t I be?”

“Oh Azula…” Ursa’s voice was heavy, almost wavering. “My little girl.”

Mom pulled her into a hug with the one arm that wasn’t already wrapped tight around her weepy brother, her hand cold to the touch. Azula was disappointed, but not surprised, to find that her embrace was lighter than Zuzu’s and didn’t last as long. That was one thing among many she was looking forward to getting rid of.

“So,” Azula asked when she was released, beaming up at the woman who would soon be all hers. “Where’s Dad?”

At that word, her brother gave a choked sob and pressed his face even harder into his mother’s silk robe. Just because he was about to be murdered for the good of the family’s future. Sissy. She watched, slightly jealous, as the elder princess wrapped both arms around her son and cooed, running her fingers gently through Zuko’s black hair and whispering into his ears. It was a little bit before he calmed down enough for Ursa to take one arm off of him. She patted the bench beside her with it, and Azula cheerfully hopped up and snuggled up next to her mother. This seemed like as good a place as any to watch the show.

“Your father…” Mom sniffed as well, and fresh tears left her makeup looking even more runny. “Your father… is… is…” she put a hand over her mouth, “dead.”

And just like that, Princess Azula felt every single one of the smug little certainties she’d felt about her life’s trajectory come crashing down around her.

“No…” the little girl muttered in a shocked, quiet voice, practically hearing ringing in her ears. “No… No…” she looked up at her mother. “No, i-it can’t be…. You’re… you’re lying.”

Father was the most powerful, most skilled, most fearsome firebender alive. Mother was a jealous weakling who couldn’t even fight. There was no way, _no way_ , that someone so mighty could perish while a pair of helpless softies like Mom and Zuzu still lived.

“An assassin… crept into…” Mom let out a soft sob, “into his study. They… stabbed him in the back.” She dried a few tears on her sleeve. “He was… dead… before anyone found… found him.”

“No…” she repeated numbly, shaking her head as if that would make it not so. “No…”

“Princess…” Palace Commander Aiguo’s weather-beaten face was not very good at looking soft, but he at least made an effort. “I’m afraid that your mother is right,” he cleared his throat. “Prince Ozai… is dead.”

Azula’s eyes widened as far as they could go, and the color drained from her face. The stupefied nine-year-old barely even noticed her mother gently pulling her in towards herself. When she didn’t respond to the hug Ursa gave her with her free arm, the elder princess took her daughter’s small right hand in her own and began stroking it gently with her thumb. The little girl felt it, but she also didn’t.

Father had always said that words from the head of the Imperial Firebenders could be trusted, because the old soldier considered himself bound by codes of honor not to lie to his superiors or some such nonsense. Azula had thought that sounded stupid. Ozai had smiled and explained to her that it was, but such traits made subordinates easier to predict and control and should therefore be encouraged in the minions. He was so smart. He was also, according to the very man whose honesty he had vouched for, deceased.

“It was a coward’s blow that did it,” the officer said, as if that was somehow supposed to be reassuring. “A dagger to his neck while he was looking the other way.”

For the first time in a very long time, Azula had no idea of what to do. For years, Father had taught her so much about firebending, martial arts, discipline, cunning, and ruthlessness, how those were the most important skills for any up-and-coming royalty, and she’d eagerly accepted his lessons. He’d taught her to master her inferiors with carefully chosen words and a steady application of fear, playing on their emotional weaknesses to keep them in line, and she’d gleefully put his teachings into practice. He’d seemed so strong, so all-knowing, so superior to everyone around him that his ascension, and by extension that of his favorite child, seemed to be a forgone conclusion.

And now he was dead.

Ozai had been a better firebender than Azula could hope to be for decades yet. He knew so much more than she did, had so many secret allies and pawns at his disposal that her own subservient clique of friends paled in comparison. His cleverness exceeded even hers, even with the occasional misstep, by a significant margin. He had seemed in his daughter’s eyes to be the alpha and the omega, the epitome of what it meant to be strong and feared and respected. He had seemed almost invincible. And yet… what had any of that availed him, in the end? Some jumped-up peasant had slain the all-powerful prince with nothing but a knife. That left his little girl alone to wonder what the point of any of it had been, if none of it had protected him from such an unworthy demise.

What was going to happen now? Was Zuko even going to be executed anymore? Would Fire Lord Azulon really want to teach a lesson to a dead son at the expense of one of his two remaining grandchildren? What about her? What would become of Father’s favorite, now that Father was gone?

Azula clutched at her mother’s hand for lack of any better ideas, feeling the older woman rubbing her thumb reassuringly across the back of her right hand. It felt sort of nice, some part of her mind absently observed.

Another five of the Imperial Firebenders emerged from the villa’s interior, making their way out to where the surviving royals sat surrounded by guards. They paused a respectful distance off, and one of them stepped forward to offer a quick salute.

“Lieutenant Lee,” Commander Aiguo acknowledged him with a nod. “Report.”

“Sir, we’ve searched the whole interior and the surrounding street,” he shook his helmeted head. “We could find no trace of the assassin’s presence. Whoever they were, they struck quickly and fled into the night.”

“I see,” the man frowned. “Have you determined their means of entry yet?”

“Several of the prince’s office shutters were found to be unlatched,” the guard said. “As they were at street level, even one would be sufficient to afford entry to an assassin wary enough to slip by the nighttime patrols, such as by crossing the rooftops. He could then have concealed himself in the draperies or behind the sitting arrangements towards the back of the room. Then he need only have waited for his highness to enter his office and expose his back.”

“I warned the prince,” the veteran officer shook his head, “I said all those curtains and shadows left him with too many blind spots.”

“There’s no sign of any struggle,” the soldier went on. “Nor are there any additional wounds beyond the fatal one. Prince Ozai was killed in a single surprise attack.” He looked at Ursa, his voice becoming more sympathetic. “I’m… sure it was quick, my lady.”

“Thank you, Lee,” Mom sniffed, wiping a tear on her sleeve, before clutching Zuko tighter to her chest and squeezing Azula’s hand a little more. “Does… does the murder weapon provide us with any clues?”

“The dagger is very nondescript, your highness,” he replied carefully. “An unadorned brass hilt, a sharp steel blade, that’s all it is. It has no identifiable markings or hints as to its origins. Not even the name of a blacksmith or stamp of a foundry. We will search everywhere, of course, but… I would not get my hopes up.”

“I see…” Ursa sighed heavily, then looked up at the commanding officer. “You realize that my children and I cannot stay here with an assassin on the loose?”

“Of course, your highness,” Aiguo nodded. “My men and I will be escorting your family to the palace and securing your quarters as soon as you feel you are ready.”

“T-The p-p-palace?” Zuzu was being a crybaby, as usual. “B-But, won’t g-grandpa… w-won’t he…”

“Shhhh…” Ursa hugged her brother close when he was being a wimp, like she always did. “Zuko, my love, it’s alright.”

“B-But…”

“Some people, when they get old and angry, sometimes say things they don’t really mean,” she smiled gently at him. “I went to speak to your grandfather earlier. He had already taken back what he said before I even got to him,” she rubbed his back softly. “You’re perfectly safe there, honey.”

Azula’s mouth fell open. Of all the scenarios she had dreamed up in her fertile imagination, one where Mom managed to _talk Grandfather out of it_ had never made even a single, solitary appearance. Fire Lord Azulon so rarely changed his mind about anything, how could she possibly have done that?

Unless… the young princess’ little eyes widened, and she wondered how she had not seen it sooner. If Ursa had invoked the memory of Lu Ten, had reminded her lord of how close Iroh’s late son had been to Zuzu when he had still lived in the palace, and then pointed out how much it would hurt Uncle to lose his only nephew so soon after his only son, then that just might have done it. His firstborn was one of the few things the ancient Fire Lord still cared about, and it was undeniable that Father’s brother really did like hers for some strange reason.

“Come now Zuko, Azula,” Mom said, patting both her children on the back and kissing them each in turn on the forehead. “Let’s be out of this place.”

* * *

The short walk to the palace was a quiet one, the waves of guards preceding and surrounding the royalty more than sufficient to keep any curious nighttime onlookers or would-be assassins at bay. Mom held Azula’s hand, and Zuko’s too, the whole trip there, and did not let go even when the vast front doors sealed shut behind them, the clang echoing almost ominously in the dark, cavernous halls. The cordon of guards didn’t loosen one bit as they proceeded down the main entranceway and veered off to the left, towards the section of the palace normally reserved for visitors. As they did so, another man in the uniform of the Imperial Firebenders came rushing out of a nearby side hall, with two more right behind him.

“Sargent Enlai,” Aiguo reacted swiftly to the men’s approach. “The Fire Lord has been informed of everything that’s transpired, then? What are his orders?”

“I… couldn’t do it, sir,” the other soldier stopped short of the cordon and hesitated. The masked helmet made his face impossible to read, but his body language suggested agitation.

“Couldn’t do what?” the commander sounded like he was frowning beneath his own helmet.

“Couldn’t wake him as you ordered, sir,” Enlai sounded more than a little shaken. “Fire Lord Azulon… Fire Lord Azulon is dead.”

Ursa gasped, her grip on her children’s hands noticeably tightening. On her other side, Zuko flinched, taking several steps back towards her skirts. Azula just stood there, a blank expression on her face, unable to feel anything right at that moment. Hours ago, that news would have made her happy, now it just seemed to be one last cosmic act of mockery. All around them, guards tensed, several edging closer as if to interpose themselves between their charges and some imaginary enemy springing from the blackness that now seemed all too suspicious.

“W-Was he…” Azula could feel her mother shaking, could hear the cracks at the edge of her voice. “Was he…”

“No, my lady,” the guard shook his head frantically. “There’s no signs of any violence, or anything untoward at all. The Fire Lord was a very old man, it appears that his heart just… stopped. He died peacefully, in his sleep.”

“Oh… thank goodness,” Mom breathed a deep sigh of relief, clutching the hand that had been holding Azula’s to her chest. She didn’t continue for a few seconds. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I just…” she shook her head and took another deep breath, “don’t think _my_ heart can take the idea of another assassin creeping about, in here of all places.”

“The Fire Nation Royal Palace is perfectly safe, Princess,” Aiguo assured her. “I swear on my life, every member of the Royal Procession would prefer death to the dishonor of allowing any harm to come to those under our protection.”

“And I thank you for your devotion,” she managed a wavering smile.

“Don’t. I’m simply doing my job,” he turned to Enlai. “Go quickly. Round up every officer we have and tell them to assemble their men. I don’t care what the schedule says, _every_ man is in uniform and on duty tonight. Understood?”

“Yes sir,” the other man nodded.

“Then get to it,” he said simply. “Dismissed.”

The lower-ranked firebender stood at attention, saluted one more time, then turned around and hurried back down the hall from whence he had come, almost jogging in his haste to be away.

“What are your orders then, my lady?” the head of the Royal Procession looked back at Ursa.

“ _My_ orders?” Mom sounded so surprised, hand halfway to her mouth again.

“The Imperial Firebenders take an oath to serve the Fire Lord and the Royal Family before all others,” Commander Aiguo said in a stoic tone, his deep voice unwavering despite all that had been happening. “Right now, Princess Ursa, you are the last adult member of it still alive and present in the capital. As far as I am concerned, you are our only superior within acceptable distance for timely communication.” He stood at attention. “What are your orders?”

“I… right,” she sighed, then drew herself up. “Send a messenger hawk to General Iroh, immediately,” she said in the same firm tone she used when she thought Azula was misbehaving, which was often. “Inform him of all that has happened. Offer our condolences for his grief and apologize but explain that what’s left of his family needs him back in Caldera City without delay.”

“It will be done, highness,” the officer nodded at one of his men, who peeled off down a nearby hall.

“My children will need their rest after all of this,” she continued. “Escort Zuko and Azula to their chambers for the night. I want four Imperial Firebenders accompanying each of them at all times. Do _not_ ,” Ursa almost sounded threatening, “let either one out of your sights for even a second. Is that clear, Commander?”

“Impeccably so, my lady.”

“Good,” she nodded.

“Mom?” Zuzu piped up. “Aren’t you coming with us?” he frowned. “Don’t you need to rest too?”

“I’m sorry, sweetie,” she bent down, smiling ever so softly at him, “but there are a few things that I have to take care of first. Go with the guards for now, they’ll take care of you,” she looked up and nodded, and several masked members of the Royal Procession closed in protectively around the children. “I’ll be along to join you both shortly, I promise.”

“O-Okay,” her brother swallowed, then took a step forward and wrapped his arms around his mother’s neck. “I love you, Mom.”

Ursa returned the hug with a single tear trickling down her cheek. “I love you too, sweetheart.”

Azula stood off to the side, feeling numb and cold. The embrace between mother and son lasted several more seconds, Mom rubbing Zuzu’s back affectionately, before the palace’s new leader apparent broke away with visible reluctance. She gestured politely at the soldiers surrounding her children, and they started to move. As one of the guards took her hand and began leading her away, however tired she might feel, the little princess doubted very much that she’d be getting any sleep on this night.

* * *

“A new Fire Lord _must_ be crowned,” High Sage Sheng, leader of the capital’s Fire Sages and so the man responsible for doing just that, declared. “Immediately.”

Roused from his slumber by the Imperial Firebenders at Ursa’s command and summoned forth to attend the palace’s last adult princess, he paced up and down the side meeting room normally used by a dozen men or more. For her part, the mentally and physically drained woman knelt on a silk cushion at the head of a low table, illuminated by blazing braziers piled high with coal. Two bodyguards stood at the ready less than five paces behind her, eight more were scattered throughout the room or just outside.

Truthfully speaking, Ursa had had only a vague idea of what would come next. The greater part of her had expected to be dead already, had thought Ozai would manage to take her with him before her poison claimed his life. Iroh would be her children’s last family, then, and the obvious choice for their guardian. She knew she could trust her brother-in-law to practice at least basic decency where his family was concerned and had contented herself with that.

Now that the deed was done and she found herself quite alive, it was beginning to dawn on the princess just how precarious a position her son might have found himself in. Prince Ozai had plotted against his brother while she had killed his father, but he had not done so alone. He had allies amongst the nobility and palace staff, ones that shared her late husband’s ruthlessness and hunger for power. Without them, it wouldn’t have been possible to arrange for the sudden change to Azulon’s last wishes, and Iroh would still have been the designated heir.

As the next recipient of the stolen crown, an orphaned Zuko would have found himself a natural target for these now leaderless, honorless men. She had gone into this whole affair with the idea that Iroh would help her son if need be, and while she still had every confidence that he would if given the chance, she was now grimly reminded that Azulon’s firstborn was still encamped with the army retreating from Ba Sing Se, weeks of travel over land and sea away. So much could happen to a devastated, sensitive, impressionable little boy in that time. How many of Ozai’s former allies, or even enemies, might approach his son, whispering words of comfort while seeking to reduce the young prince to a puppet under their guardianship? If the Fire Lord’s will could be faked, then so too could Ozai’s own, appointing some ambitious lordling as ward of his dear children before Iroh could so much as set foot on their island home. And that wasn’t even the worst possible scenario she could imagine befalling her sweet son.

Well, Ursa vowed silently, not while _she_ was still breathing.

“Fire Lord Azulon ruled over this nation for _seventy-five years_ ,” the man went on, “Almost none now live who can remember a time when he did not lead us. His death alone will be cataclysmic when it is announced. But think of how our people, how our enemies will react when they hear of the whole tale. In the space of days, the Royal Family has been decimated. Prince Lu Ten and Prince Ozai are both dead. The Siege of Ba Sing Se is lost. The omens are poor all around. Our people might whisper that our leadership is cursed; our enemies will think us weak and redouble their efforts. And on top of it all, Prince Iroh’s birthright has been revoked. I cannot disrespect the Fire Lord’s dying wish.”

 _It’s amazing how easily you lie,_ Ursa thought.

“Even were I willing to do such a thing, we cannot leave the Fire Nation leaderless for the several weeks it will take the former Crown Prince to return to the capital. We will need to hold the funeral swiftly and install a new Fire Lord, or the stability of the throne and nation could be in jeopardy,” he continued. “But what am I to do? With Prince Ozai’s passing, the line moves to Prince Zuko. In these trying times, am I to crown a mere boy of eleven?!”

Ursa knew perfectly well that the High Sage had been in on Ozai’s plot. He, after all, had been one of the “witnesses” who had verified the alleged changes to Fire Lord Azulon’s last will and testament. Now, with the ringleader of their conspiracy mysteriously struck dead, the man obviously wanted anyone at all on the throne rather than the famed war hero he had betrayed. A child king that loved his uncle very much would hardly be the buffer the old schemer felt he needed while he worked out how to ingratiate himself into the new regime.

“You have _no_ authority over my son’s birthright,” she reminded him in a testy voice. “Only a Fire Lord may alter the order of succession.”

“That is true, your highness,” the sage said hastily, licking his lips, “but there is precedent for a… temporary solution.”

“A regency,” Ursa tapped one fingernail on the tabletop. “And I suppose that you have someone in mind?”

“Well…” the man tugged at his collar, eying the Imperial Firebenders surrounding them. “It is on very short notice, but perhaps we might be able to find som-”

“Speaking of precedent,” the princess sat forward a little, folding her hands together. “Are you familiar with the history of Fire Lords Meitan, Hengsao, and Shaoshang?

“They were…” Sheng had to think for a moment, stroking his thin grey mustache, “all placed on the throne before coming of age. For the earliest years of their reigns, power was exercised in their names by…” his eyes widened a fraction, “their mothers.”

Ursa was not Ozai. She had not killed her father-in-law and then her husband in the name of personal power. A large part of her hadn’t even been expecting to survive the second assassination. But she had, and she was here now. And while she was still breathing, the princess had no intention of surrendering the welfare of her son and daughter into the hands of some unknown nobleman for several years, quite possibly one of the very same ones that had been conspiring with Prince Ozai. It would be so very tempting for someone like that to quietly snuff out the last heirs of the royal bloodline once they had solidified their control and then attempt to begin a new dynasty.

“Fire Lady Dowager, I believe the title was,” Ursa said, staring at him. “Do you think that reviving that position would be an acceptable solution to our situation? I am of no great clan or house. I have no particular enemies.”

_No living ones, at any rate._

“I have no allegiances to factions beyond the Royal Family itself. No one should feel unduly threatened or offended by my holding my son’s throne for a time. As we’ve established, the precedent is there.”

“Forgive me, my lady,” he bowed his head slightly, “but you lack much in the way of… governing expertise.”

“I am more politically aware than some think me,” she told him in a stern voice, boring deep into his brown eyes. “But of course, I also recognize my own shortcomings,” she sat back, watching him carefully. “There would be need for loyal sons of the Fire Nation to guide me in matters where I lack experience.”

And there it was. That all-too-familiar gleam in the old man’s eyes, the same one she’d watched consume any traces of goodness that had once existed in her husband. The same one that would drive a man to debase his honor and betray the trust of his Fire Lord and Crown Prince alike. The same one she’d seen all too often in the eyes of the daughter who ought to be far too young for such things. The craving of the already powerful for yet more power.

Ursa mentally marked Sheng as one to keep an eye on.

“I see,” he muttered, and stroked his long mustache a little more, as if he were considering it. “If you are aware of such things, Princess Ursa… then I suppose it does make a good deal of sense to keep a regency within the Royal Family. It would avoid complicated disputes within the nobility and reassure our people that our divine forefather still smiles upon your ancient and honorable house. Provided of course,” he spread his hands out in a gesture of appeasement, “that there are no objections.”

“I’ll talk to my son in the morning,” she favored him with an insincere smile, “I’m certain he’ll be alright with it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you like this fic, or even if you don't, I'd ask that you please leave me a comment. Feedback helps me grow as an author.


	3. The New Fire Lord

“Fire Lord?!” Zuko’s voice rang out the next morning. “I’m going to be Fire Lord?!”

“Shhh, dear, not so loud,” Ursa said with a half-smile, long hair visibly ruffled and still in the same clothes from last night. “You’ll wake the whole palace.”

The older princess and her two children were located in one of the palace’s many enormous guest chambers, equipped with two oversized beds wide enough for four people to sleep comfortably but only intended to hold one each, or at most a couple. The eight guards assigned to the last heirs of the Royal Family had led them here and then posted themselves throughout the room, obediently never allowing the children out of their sight for a single second, even if that meant staring at them unceasingly until morning. Azula supposed they had to be getting pretty tired by now – that or they’d changed shifts some time during the night. The faceless uniforms made it next to impossible to tell exactly who was who.

In spite of her expectations, the little princess had fallen asleep last night, by sheer dint of her young body being physically and emotionally exhausted if nothing else. Gone were her glorious dreams of being an only child with all the affection she could ever want. Replacing them were fitful, disturbing images of shadowy figures with gleaming blades, stalking tiny but not all that afraid, honest, princesses through darkened corridors that firebending refused to light. Azula had woken up in the early hours of the morning with a face drenched in cold sweat, to find that her mother had made her way into the chamber at some point during the night, as promised.

Ursa had apparently crawled into bed to sleep beside one of her offspring – Zuko’s bed, naturally. That was fine, of course. Her brother was always the weak, needy one. It wasn’t as though _Azula_ required her sole surviving parent beside her, or needed to feel her Mom’s soft, warm arms wrapped tenderly around her sleeping form.

It would have been nice though.

“B-But I’m not ready for that!” Zuzu’s eyes were wide, staring up at the woman now sitting on his bedside. “I’ve still got so much to learn and… and…” he struggled for words. “What about Uncle? Isn’t he the Crown Prince? Shouldn’t he be the next Fire Lord?”

“Fire Lord Azulon made some changes to his will before he passed away,” Mom sighed, holding his hand in one of hers and stroking it gently. “He decided to move your father up in the line of succession to ensure the continuity of the bloodline. With Prince Ozai… gone… as well before he could claim it, that means as his firstborn son the crown goes to you.”

So, Grandfather _had_ seen the wisdom of Father’s proposal after all, after he’d calmed down a bit. Probably after talking to Mom and being somehow convinced to spare Zuko. It was unexpected and somewhat out of character for him, but this whole experience had so thoroughly overturned all of her predictions that she couldn’t discount anything. The only other option she could think of was that the will had been forged, but Azula didn’t consider that possibility as realistic at all. At his advanced age, Azulon would have noticed any such thing in short order, and the consequences that would befall such traitors didn’t bear thinking about, even for her. That, and if Father had known of a way to make the old man just conveniently die, peacefully and asleep, the way he had, she was sure he’d have done it to his father and brother alike years ago. Maybe with his nephew and possibly his son thrown in for good measure. 

“But… but…” her brother looked almost ready to hyperventilate, he was so pathetic. He should have been thrilled that the throne had just come to him so easily. Mere hours ago, he had been slated for execution. A more dramatic turn of fortune was hard to imagine. “I don’t know what to do with that much responsibility! How can I? I’m just a kid!”

“Zuko,” Mother’s tone was soft, reassuring, “Do you trust me?”

“I…” he looked at her with wide, innocent eyes. “Of course I trust you!”

“Then trust me when I say that I’ve been thinking about this,” she patted him on the back. “Do you remember what your history teachers taught you about Fire Lord Meitan?”

“Well…” he scratched the back of his head. “He was… um…”

Even now, he was such a dumdum. Some things never changed.

“Fire Lord Meitan was an only child crowned at the age of six, after his father Fire Lord Hao died suddenly of a wasting epidemic that was sweeping the country,” Azula recited the relevant facts smoothly from where she sat on the opposite bed, part of her instinctively knowing where this was going. “His mother, Fire Lady Airen, though not of royal blood, governed the Fire Nation in his name for the first thirteen years of his reign, taking on the title of Fire Lady Dowager. She was the first to use it, though unofficially the wives and mothers of Fire Lords had often exercised great influence at court in the past.”

“Very good, Azula,” Mom favored her momentarily with a warm smile and a nod, then promptly returned her attention to her son. “Now, Zuko… I don’t exactly know of an easy way to ask this,” she smiled self-deprecatingly, “But would it be alright with you if I… kept the throne safe for you, for a little while? Just until you’ve come of age and you feel like you’re ready, of course.”

“Would you?!” he replied immediately, exhaling deeply.

“If that’s what you need, then of course I’ll do it.”

“It won’t be too much trouble for you, will it?”

“For you?” she replied. “Not at all.”

“Thanks Mom,” Zuzu wrapped his arms around her waist. “You’re the best!”

Ursa simply smiled one more time, closed her eyes, and hugged her son back.

And just like that, Azula watched in a daze as all the power Father had devoted his life to acquiring was casually banded about between the two biggest softies she knew.

It didn’t feel real. It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t _fair_. This wasn’t how things were supposed to turn out. Ruthless superiority was supposed to lead to power and glory, not an early grave. Tenderness was supposed to lead to subjugation, not mastery of the nation. Zuzu didn’t deserve to be even a lesser prince, much less the Fire Lord. She was smarter than he was, she worked harder than he did, she was more talented at everything worth being talented in. Why should him having the good fortune of happening to have been born first mean that everything that ought to have been hers just fell into his lap?

Father had understood. Ozai knew all too well the pain of seeing power and glory being given to an undeserving older sibling because of a supposed birthright. That was just one more reason she had been his favorite. If he had lived, he would have named Azula his heir, she just knew it. But someone out there had denied him that chance, and now that route to the throne was forever closed.

At least a _few_ things made sense about this whole mess with what she knew now, like how it had gotten started. Some of Father’s enemies must have gotten wind of the changes to Azulon’s will from spies in the palace, and knowing their doom was fast approaching, moved quickly to ensure that the second-born prince would never see the power he had worked so hard to claim. Maybe one of Uncle’s supporters, maybe someone unaffiliated. She could rule out his royal tea-loving kookiness himself having any direct hand in it by sheer dint of timing. What turned out to be Azulon’s dying wish had to have taken place mere hours, if that, before Father’s murder. Even the fastest hawks in the empire couldn’t have made it to the war camp located not far from Ba Sing Se bearing the news in that small space of time, let alone returned with orders to eliminate Ozai.

It wasn’t the fact that her sire’s enemies might have been terrified and desperate enough to attempt an assassination that had so surprised and unnerved Azula. No, the life-shattering, world-rocking revelation lay in the fact that they had _succeeded_. She had thought him too powerful to fall against anything less than an army, but all of Father’s might and all of his grand plans had come up short against something so lowly as a single man armed with glorified kitchenware. The sobering but undeniable reality was that utter mastery of fire and divine blood and a brilliant mind and legions of minions provably did not make one any less human. Any less vulnerable. Father had proven to be vulnerable, and he had been so much greater than she was. If Ozai could fall then Azula could fall just as easily, and all her pretensions of control meant nothing where it mattered the most. And _that_ was a deeply frightening fact for the nine-year-old prodigy to face. It was easier just to be mad at Zuko.

Her mother and brother did not end their embrace for quite a little while. When they finally did, Ursa stood up from the bed, attempting to work a few knots out of her long, mussed-up hair as she did so, and then beckoned her children to do likewise.

“I’m sorry to ask so much of both of you so soon after all that’s happened, but today is going to be a very busy day,” Mom said. “And you’ll need your strength, so I thought we should have a big breakfast. Does that sound good to you two?”

“Sure,” said Zuko.

“I guess,” Azula muttered.

Mom led the two royal siblings out of their temporary quarters and down the vast hallway to another guest room not far away. As they went, the guards were never more than a few paces behind or beside them, and the corridors were positively crawling with them. Even in her unusually deflated state, Azula could tell from the mass of servants and bureaucrats and functionaries they passed in the halls, scurrying this way and that, carrying papers or cloth or boxes, that the entire palace had gone into overdrive. And no wonder, the man who had held the nation in his iron grip for three quarters of a century was dead, alongside his second son and chosen successor. Preparing for the turnover had to involve a lot of work.

The side chamber where breakfast was waiting was, at the very least, quieter. Besides the omnipresent soldiers of the Royal Procession, the three royals were alone in a visitor’s room meant to feed twenty at once. Spread out on the table before them was a vast array of delicacies and treats, ranging from steamed buns stuffed with salted meat or red bean paste or creamy custard to congee rice porridge to fresh fruit spreads to deep-fried dough sticks to several dishes of wheat and rice noodles to vegetable and meat dumplings with an assortment of spicy dipping sauces, their morning meal wanted for nothing. Mom took Dad’s former place at the head of the table, Zuko on her right and Azula on her left. The young prince dug in ravenously, the stresses of last night apparently having only fueled his already-vigorous appetite. As ever, the princess was his opposite. Azula picked idly at a few of the dumplings that would normally have been her favorite, part of her wondering if she was about to be fatally poisoned. Royals had been dropping like flies lately.

The trio ate in silence for a while, though Azula did catch her mother glancing at her daughter’s mostly untouched plate with a worried expression a couple of times. The elder princess ate plenty herself, though at a far more relaxed pace than her son, keeping her table manners impeccable as she did.

“So,” Mom eventually did speak up when the eating had slowed down to a crawl. “I know that last night was hard for everyone. How are you two holding up?”

“…I miss Dad,” Zuzu said, looking down at his plate of half-finished steamed buns.

Dumdum. Didn’t he realize that Dad would have sacrificed him without blinking if Mom hadn’t somehow managed to talk Grandfather down? She had watched the sordid scene unfold in the throne room, Ozai hadn’t even attempted to argue for his own son’s life. Why would he? It just meant that his favored child would be the official heir. Really, it showed how much age had affected Azulon’s once-brilliant mind that he’d considered it a punishment at all.

“I…” Ursa closed her eyes and breathed deeply, “miss your father as well.”

Azula wondered if she really did. Some people said the prince and princess had had a good, or at least passable, marriage back when it was first arranged, but all she could ever remember for the last several years was the two of them fighting. Dad always won whenever he cared enough to, of course. He was vastly stronger, both politically and martially, and his status alone was far above the entirety of the minor noble house Ursa hailed from. Of the only two people above him, Azulon didn’t care enough to have much to do with his second son’s marital life, and Iroh was more often than not away on campaign. All Mom could really ever do was plead with or annoy Dad into changing his mind, and even that could be silenced with a word or stern glare if he really wanted to. That he’d ever made any concessions to her at all was probably a gesture of whatever pity he had been capable of.

“Azula,” Mom continued, looking over at her. “You haven’t said or eaten much, dear. How are you feeling?”

Cold. Aimless. Confused. Afraid.

Father said strong girls weren’t supposed to show fear.

“Alright,” she said, and forced herself to eat a rich hippo beef dumpling while Ursa looked on. “I’m feeling fine.”

“You don’t have to hide your feelings from me. You know that, don’t you?” her tone was gentle. “It’s alright to be sad sometimes.”

 _Maybe if you’re a wimp like you and Zuzu,_ part of her mind shot back.

“I’m _fine_ , Mother,” Azula repeated with a frown on her face, and then shoved some more food in her mouth to prove it. “…See?” she managed, cheeks visibly stuffed and bulging.

Just because she felt weak and alone and smaller than she had in a long time didn’t mean she had to show it. She was trained to be better than that.

“Hmmm…” Ursa took a much demurer bite out of a century egg, chewing with a thoughtful expression on her face. It took Azula a minute or so to chew up and swallow all the things that were in her mouth, and she took a long swig of steaming amazake to wash them down.

“So,” Zuko piped up again. “What are we doing after breakfast?”

“Well, the two of you will need to see the palace tailors this morning and have your measurements taken if we’re to have appropriate clothing ready for you both in time for this evening,” she smiled slightly. “You’ve both grown a little bit since you were at Grandmother Ilah’s funeral.”

That was a mild understatement. Azula had been all of one and a half at the time.

“That’s no fun,” Azula murmured, picturing standing around with her arms out while silly older women fussed over her.

“I’m afraid that funerals rarely are, sweetheart.”

 _Shows what you know,_ the little girl mentally sneered. _I would have had a great time if it had just been Grandfather._

Her withered old namesake had been biased against her since the day she came into the world. Not only was she the second-born of his second-born and thus a mere fifth in line for the throne, but he distastefully considered even the tribute paid to him in her name to be little more than blatant flattery, for which he had no time. Even her prodigious firebending talents, the apple of Father’s eye, had failed to stir Grandfather from his utter apathy towards her existence. That proved he was just a stupid old man long past his mental prime.

“You’ll need to be properly dressed for your coronation as well, of course.”

“Right… the coronation…” Zuko swallowed a little.

“They won’t actually put the crown on your head for very long, but you’re still going to be acclaimed as Fire Lord today,” Mom told him. “We won’t ask you to do much, but if you wouldn’t mind saying just a few words that I’ll go over with you later, it would make things go just a little more smoothly.”

“R-Right…” he nodded weakly. “I’ll say whatever you need me to.”

Azula actually felt insulted, a glimmer of comfortable, familiar anger stirring amidst the unpleasant sensations she had been experiencing since Father had died. This wimp as the next Fire Lord instead of Father, even if it was in name only for now? It was disgusting to think about. Someone needed to put him in his place.

“Don’t get too used to being up there,” The princess said, hands on hips. “When I’m old enough to inherit, I’ll challenge you to an Agni Kai and win and take the throne from you.” She leaned forward across the table and whispered. “Who knows, maybe you’ll get a scar or two on that chubby little baby face of yours.”

Zuko flinched a little but rallied and tried to look tough anyway. “Bring it on, Azula!” he said with one fist clenched. “I’ll take you on anytime!”

“ ** _Azula!_** ” Mom’s voice was sharp, so much so that the little girl flinched herself. “Young lady, we do _not_ speak that way!” She pointed one long, manicured fingernail at her son. “Apologize to your brother this instant!”

Right. The usual dynamic around mealtimes wasn’t there anymore. Openly denigrating her brother probably wouldn’t be allowed. She’d have to get used to that.

The princess bullied her brother because that was what she knew, the way the world had always been as far back as her memory stretched. It was a refreshing and direct demonstration of her power, proof that for all her uncertainty she was still in control somewhere. Only, the usual rush didn’t come, and when she thought about it, she knew perfectly well why. She wasn’t in control here, Mom was, and there was nothing she could do about it. Even worse, control like hers had proven so much more ephemeral than she’d thought. The lowliest of weapons could rip it all away in an instant.

The unfamiliar situation presented no easy answers. What if in the future she did win an Agni Kai for the Dragon Throne, and then the very same assassin returned and cut her throat in her sleep because he didn’t want her on it either? How would her victory have won her anything then? None of that gnawing existential uncertainty meant that she disliked the idea of showing weakness by backing down any less though. But she had no choice. Dad wasn’t here to force Mom to ignore her words or laugh them off as youthful jibes anymore.

“…Sorry Zuko,” she mumbled in a low voice, arms crossed and a slight pout on her face.

“Louder,” Mom demanded. “And mean it.”

“Sorry Zuko,” Azula forced herself to bow a little at the waist. “It won’t happen again.”

“Hmph,” her brother crossed his own arms and looked unconvinced. It didn’t escape her notice that he’d edged just a little closer towards Mother while her eyes were downcast either. It was at least a tiny bit gratifying to see that he still feared her even without Father.

“Zuko,” Mom’s voice was chiding, but only mildly so. “I want you to accept your sister’s apology, like a gallant and gracious young prince.”

Reluctantly, he uncrossed his arms. “…I accept your apology, Azula,” he said.

“That’s better,” the elder princess smiled. “I know that both of you haven’t always gotten along, but with so much happening all at once it’s important that we stick together as a family.”

“She made fun of Uncle for being sad about Lu Ten’s death just yesterday!” Zuko pointed at his sister. “She said he was a quitter and a loser. Then last night she came to my room and made fun of me when she thought I was about to die! Azula doesn’t care about family at all!”

_Tattletale._

“Oh relax, I knew that Grandpa and Dad wouldn’t actually go through with it,” Azula lied. “Can’t you take a joke?”

“Azula, death in the family is nothing to joke about,” Ursa said sternly. “You will not do so again, am I clear?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And you will show your uncle proper respect. He is a great war hero who’s served our nation valiantly for many years, and his son just made the ultimate sacrifice for all our sakes. I won’t hear a word said against them, is that understood?”

“Yes ma’am,” the little princess forced herself to nod, fuming inside but powerless to do otherwise.

“Good,” Mom nodded, sitting back. “Now please, both of you, I know that some very difficult things have been happening and we’re all more than a little sad and worried, but I want the two of you to try and get along. We’re all that we have left now. Please, promise me that you’ll at least make the effort to be kind to one another.”

“I’ll only do it if she does,” Zuzu said.

“Well, I’ll only do it if you do,” Azula retorted.

“Hmph,” both siblings said simultaneously.

Ursa rubbed a hand on her forehead and sighed.

“Um, your highness?” a voice cut in meekly. Azula turned and saw that a woman in servant’s robes had slipped quietly in the door at some point, pausing behind the line of guards. She bowed at the waist. “Chamberlain Lao would like to speak with you regarding some of today’s arrangements.”

“Can it wait?”

“He said it was urgent, my lady.”

“Very well,” Ursa sighed again, standing up smoothly. “I’ll be back with you both shortly.”

The elder princess and effective Fire Lady to be followed the servant girl out the door, escorted by a quartet of the Imperial Firebenders. The chamber door slid shut almost noiselessly behind her, leaving the two children alone with the remaining, silent guards.

At first, it was just awkward silence, with Zuko taking a few more bites out of his savory buns while Azula sipped on amazake. The princess stared at her brother between swallows of the piping hot, sweet beverage, while he mostly tried to avoid eye contact with the girl who’d gleefully anticipated his death. Such a baby. She hadn’t actually been responsible for any of it, and he hadn’t died, so what was the big deal? He ought to have been elated at his sudden run of good luck, the rapid shift of the family power dynamics in his favor.

“So…” the prince eventually forced himself to say something. “Things are probably going to be pretty different from now on, huh?”

“All hail Fire Lord Zuzu, master of the obvious,” she replied. “We’ll have to live in the palace from now on, and I’m sure they’ll make you take a lot more advanced classes now that you’re going to be sitting on the throne instead of just fourth in line.” She smiled mirthlessly. “Get ready for a lot more schoolwork and a lot less free time in your life.” 

He glared at her. “And there won’t be in yours?”

“The difference is I’m already in the advanced sets, and _I_ can handle anything new quickly and easily,” she boasted. “I’ve always been at the top of my class, and I still will be when I go back to school.”

“I don’t think Mom will let you go back to the Royal Fire Academy for Girls after this,” her brother pointed out. “She’ll probably make you stay and study here to make sure you’re safe.”

Azula blinked. She hadn’t thought of that yet, but for once Zuzu was probably right. Letting a little girl wander across even the hallowed halls of that elite campus without a constant accompaniment took on a whole new level of risk after her father had been murdered with the assassin still on the loose. She’d be seeing a lot less of Mai and Ty Lee then, and the pleasure of basking in the awed worship of crowds of lesser girls would be curtailed. Another thing ripped away from her.

“I guess life is just gonna get busier and harder for both of us,” Zuko concluded with a sigh. “Great.”

The princess gripped her chopsticks tight. Harder for _both_ them? He made it seem like there was any equivalency between their situations. Azula had lost her greatest patron, teacher, and role model, the man who had given her dominance in the family and her brilliant mastery of flame. The man who would have given her the world. It was the future she’d earned that was lying dashed to pieces on the rocks. She was the one who was alone in the world now. She was the one who was really suffering. Zuko had lost a father that didn’t care for him anyway and gained the world’s greatest empire in exchange. What right did he have to complain, then? The parent that favored _him_ was still alive.

“What would you know?” Azula muttered, wearing a sour expression at how unfair it all was. “This is all your fault anyway for being so useless.”

“Is not!” he shot back.

“Oh yes, it is. I bet that the reason why Dad was killed was because someone knew you’d be a total wimp on the throne and let them do whatever they wanted. And your stupid demonstration yesterday is probably the whole reason Grandpa is dead too,” she told him spitefully. Cruel words came easily to her. “I think he got himself so worked up thinking about how _incompetent_ his last grandson was last night that his old heart just gave out.”

“Ahem,” said a familiar voice from behind them.

Azula’s head whipped around, to find a pair of amber eyes staring right back at her from beneath a deeply furrowed brow.

Entering this room noiselessly must have been easier than she thought.

“Zuko,” Ursa said in a low, quiet voice. “The tailors are here to measure you for your new clothes. Go with the guards to see them. Now.”

“But-” he began.

“I have words that are for your sister’s ears alone,” she told him, more sternly than she normally spoke to her favorite. “Please, go and get ready.”

“Yes, Mom,” the prince said, rising from the table. More firebenders moved in close to escort him, and the little party vanished out the doorway in short order.

“The rest of you,” Mother continued in her commanding tone. “Please wait outside for just a few moments. This won’t be long.”

“But my lady, we’re under strict orders not to leave you or your children alone for any length of time,” one soldier protested.

“I believe we’ve established by now that this room contains no assassins,” she told him. “And I believe I can handle my nine-year-old daughter on my own. Please,” she repeated, “wait just outside. Secure every entrance and the surrounding hallway if it pleases you. But allow me a moment alone with Princess Azula.”

“I…” the man sighed, then bowed at the waist. “As you wish, my lady.”

One by one, the remaining Imperial Firebenders did a final sweep of the crimson-walled room before filing outside to await their princesses. The last soldier to leave slid the wooden door closed behind him, though shadows could just still be made out through the opaque white glass held within the cherry wood frame. Azula and her half-eaten breakfast were left completely alone with her mother, the older woman standing tall, towering over the child still kneeling on a cushion beside the table.

“ **Enough** ,” Ursa said in a low voice that demanded obedience. “Young lady, I have had enough. This has to stop, _now_.”

“What has to stop?” the little girl said in her most innocent tone, eyes wide and face sporting an almost angelic aspect.

“You know perfectly well what I mean, don’t pretend that you don’t.” Mom scowled at her. “You’ve always been an intelligent child. Why you can think of no better use for that brain of yours than inventing new ways of tormenting your brother has always been beyond me.”

“But I’m just teasing him,” she lied, still looking cute as a button. “Isn’t that what all brothers and sisters do? Play jokes on each other?”

“Your behavior goes far beyond any mere childish pranks, and it has for a very long time. And your brother may be the worst example, but he’s hardly the only one. For years now, you’ve shown a chronic lack of respect for anyone or anything besides yourself or your father, and it’s high time that you learned to conduct yourself more appropriately.”

“But Father said-”

“What your father may have thought about your behavior is no longer relevant at all,” Ursa shook her head.

In spite of herself, Azula’s eyes still widened to hear Ozai’s opinion so casually dismissed. Mom was coming out of Dad’s shadow _fast_. As recently as the day before she would never have dared to say such a thing.

“Because your care is now solely my responsibility.” The princess looked down at her daughter. “Azula, in the last day alone, you have mocked your uncle’s grief at your cousin’s death, repeatedly insulted our nation’s greatest general, scorned your grandfather’s age, and openly wished for his death and replacement right before my eyes!”

Oh yes, she had done that only yesterday, hadn’t she? It seemed almost a lifetime ago, when she’d thought it would be Ozai taking over from Azulon. How quickly the world had turned upside down.

“And today I find you blaming Zuko for your father’s murder as well as your grandfather’s passing and threatening to _maim your brother’s face_?!” Mom looked coldly furious now. “That is not how good young ladies behave, that is not how good sisters behave, and that is not how a good princess is to behave!”

 _And why would I_ want _to be your idea of a good princess?_ Azula wondered. _What do I get out of it?_

“For a very long time you’ve shown no true respect for your own family, for your friends, for your ruler, for our servants, for the sacrifices of our soldiers, for the many gifts you are given, even for the animals and the flowers. It’s time for that to change,” her tone was hard. “You’re more than old enough to understand these things. It’s long past time that you internalized the idea that things outside yourself have value in and of themselves, not simply for how much they may please you. People are not playthings for you to mock and bat around for your amusement, and the world does not exist to fulfill your every whim!”

_Then what is it for?_

“And make no mistake, Azula, from this day forward, this lesson will be taught, time and time again if need be, until you show me that you’ve truly grasped it. Your father may have indulged your…” she visibly struggled to find words, “your… frankly, your _atrocious_ behavior for far too long, but _I_ will not,” Ursa folded her arms across her chest, and to her daughter the elder princess had never looked taller. “Let me make this as clear as clear can be, young lady. From now on, you _will_ play nicely with others, or you _will_ be punished. As many times as it takes.” She frowned deeply, unblinking eyes boring right into Azula’s. “Am I understood?”

The proudest part of Azula felt the urge to just mock her mother. Mock Ursa’s weakness, her trite morality, her sad little social conventions and notions of what it meant to be ladylike, her pitiful excuse for firebending, her lack of true divine royal blood. Only yesterday she might have done so proudly in response to such an unusually harsh scolding, boasting of her strength and cunning and superiority, and simply daring her mother to do anything about it. She didn’t need Mom’s approval, she had Dad’s. And Mom had always lived in the shadow of Dad, the princess would have gloated. Ursa could only punish the family’s prodigy as far as Ozai would allow. The scion of minor nobility was nothing but a glorified family servant, really, and her daughter never wanted to become pathetic like her. She would follow the path that would lead to the ultimate satisfaction of her every desire, through the use of power and cunning and fear. Even if it meant missing out on a few warm hugs and comforting words along the way, Azula would follow Ozai’s path, and never Ursa’s.

But… Ozai’s path had just ended, not with the unmatched power and everlasting glory and limitless wealth and fawning multitudes that he had spun such mesmerizing tales of, but with a simple knife buried in his back. An ignominious peasant’s death, for a prince who had almost been Fire Lord. He hadn’t even managed to put up a fight. All his words and all his schemes and all his firebending hadn’t helped him one bit when all was said and done. What good would such things be to her, then? Would she just wind up sharing her father’s fate if she followed any further in his footsteps? Azula didn’t understand how it could have turned out this way, but against all the odds, against everything she had been taught or learned on her own about how the world worked, she had to acknowledge that in the end it was Dad who had perished. While Mom, weak, sad little Mom, had somehow not only survived but wound up with all the power that her father had spent his entire life craving.

It was almost like one of Mother’s insipid, childish bedtime stories that Zuzu still loved to hear but Azula had fully rejected a long time ago. Once Father had shown her how easily they came apart, it had been only natural. In those dull little morality tales, the whole universe seemed to bend over backwards to make sure that the good guys won, and the bad guys got their punishment in the end, no matter how unlikely it seemed. They were laughably simplistic, just like her brother, and completely fell apart once even the slightest dose of realism was applied. Father had almost playfully pointed out that _he_ would probably qualify as a bad guy if life truly resembled one of Mother’s stories, and his daughter need only look around her own home to see who really ruled whom. Azula had laughed merrily at that. It didn’t seem so funny now.

From what had happened last night, it seemed as though the universe really had bent over backwards to ensure just such a trite outcome. An unknown avenger seemingly ripped right out of a storybook had humbled the haughty, filicidal prince before he could touch his pitiable offspring. The old king had passed away just in time to leave his kingdom to the beautiful, kind princess and her gentle son. The villain was brought low, the patient, longsuffering heroes were raised up.

Azula, taking after Ozai, had never believed in spirits except in the most general sense. Even the great spirit of the sun, whose divine blood flowed in her veins, expected his children to prove themselves ruthless and strong on their own merits. Agni had no interest in trifling concerns of petty, baseborn morality, whatever some old legends said. There was no one looking over the world’s shoulder, adjusting karmic balances and dealing out appropriate punishments to wicked men, merely distant, self-interested creatures almost wholly contained in their own alien world and therefore irrelevant to human affairs. After all that had happened the night before, though, the child princess was no longer quite so sure as she had been. That fact frightened her in more ways than one.

Plus, Father had always said that power was everything, hadn’t he? And Mother, however impossible it had seemed only yesterday, had all of the power now. Power over the nation, over the palace, over Azula herself. Her path had looked so pathetic and unappealing, yet it had somehow led her to the final triumph Father had always sought so hard and yet would never have. And everything that Azula had previously thought most important had simply failed to offer Ozai any real security when it counted. Maybe… Maybe Mom’s way of doing things could at least be worth a try after all?

“Yes, Mommy,” Azula said meekly.

* * *

The funeral took place at sunset, as was tradition.

It was a grand affair indeed, a fitting final chapter for the man who had shaped the Fire Nation for seven and a half decades and the son he had “chosen” to succeed him. The Coronation Plaza was packed with crowds of mourners dressed in the traditional mourning white, along with rank upon rank of men and women in ritual hooded red robes, carrying tall banners representing the many islands and colonies that made up the mighty Fire Nation, from the least to the greatest. No one could afford not to be present, if only symbolically, for the single most important event that had happened in Caldera City in decades. Bedecked in beautiful, brand-new white silk robes trimmed with gold and bereft of her usual headpiece, the princess stood atop the stairway leading up to the Coronation Temple, looking out on the swathes of strangers whose lives she was being entrusted with, and felt sweat trickling gently down the back of her neck.

She had to suppress the urge to swallow.

Ozai’s former wife hadn’t planned for all of this when she’d set out to kill the Fire Lord and his second son. She hadn’t really had a plan at all for after what she’d assumed would be her final night beyond vague ideas that her son would somehow be safe at the end of it. She had just been a desperate mother suddenly thrust into an impossible situation without any time to prepare by the reckless ambition of one monster and the wounded, callous pride of a second. Her thoughts hadn’t gone much further than slaying both of the monsters and protecting her precious boy, the light of her life throughout the many dark years spent under her husband’s increasingly tyrannical thumb.

But with time to properly evaluate things afterwards and the immediate danger passed, the situation had become both clearer and darker than she’d initially thought. Circumstances had conspired to offer her a simple choice: either seize power now for herself while no one else was prepared to do so, or else attempt to wait for weeks for General Iroh to return, hoping no one else hostile to her vulnerable offspring was able to seize power during that time, and then hope that the man who had suffered the triple blows of the loss of a son, a father, and a brother in quick succession would feel up to fighting Agni knew how many would-be usurpers by that point _and_ the forged will disinheriting him. And that, sadly, was no choice at all.

Ursa had no skill to speak of as a personal combatant, no ties to powerful figures in the military or noble houses to call upon, nothing save the legitimacy that came from de facto control over the palace itself with which to shield her offspring. If anyone were able to turn the Imperial Firebenders or one of the other substantial military garrisons on the home island against her, then she and Zuko and Azula were as good as dead. A swift transition to a new Fire Lord and official regency made that so much less politically palatable than the weeks of uncertainty about the succession that would ensue if she had attempted to block the coronation from taking place at the funeral. The potential consequences of allowing someone else to become regent if she declined to seize the spot didn’t bear thinking about. She would do what she had to if it meant keeping her children safe.

“Azulon,” High Sage Sheng intoned in a solemn manner, his well-practiced voice resounding throughout the plaza. “Fire Lord to our nation for seventy-five years. You were our fearless leader in the Battle of Garsai. Our matchless conqueror of the Hu Xin Provinces. You were father of Iroh. Father of Ozai, now passed. Husband of Ilah, now passed. Grandfather of Lu Ten, now passed. Grandfather to Zuko and Azula,” he paused. “All the Fire Nation weeps for your passing.”

At that, Ursa duly bowed her head, as did her children beside her and all present in the plaza. In life or in death, a man such as Azulon had been could not help but be respected, even by those who hated him.

But there were those who knew how his ancient mind had declined near the end. Only a fool would have willingly held his evening tea ceremony in the presence of a woman whose son he had ordered murdered behind her back, no matter how many times she had previously been sent to attend him, to court favor on behalf of her husband. The old Fire Lord had grown too used to meek subservience from his daughter-in-law. The complacency of age and comfortable routines had done to Azulon what arrogance and greed had done to Ozai. He’d practically been asking for the slow-acting toxin she’d slipped him during the ceremony before helping the waiting servants escort him to bed at its end.

“And alongside you,” the sage continued after a moment of silence, “we mourn the loss of your second son, Prince Ozai, taken from us before his time.”

There were no grand accomplishments to speak of for her former husband. He had ever been a palace creature, never one to serve the nation on the front as his grandfather, father, brother, and nephew had.

“We lay you both now to rest,” he said, turning away from the crowd to approach the wide, ornate golden sarcophagus, reverently retrieving the Fire Lord’s ancient crown from where it lay waiting.

 _It didn’t have to end this way,_ the princess thought, stealing a last glance at Ozai’s carefully prepared corpse, lying beside and below that of his father on the majestic pyre. _You could have been better._

As hard as it seemed to believe now, there had been a time when the prince had at least seemed to make an effort to be a decent husband. Ursa had known from the beginning that she had been wed to him for the blood of her father’s father, of course, but from time to time she could allow herself to forget that and believe that he held some genuine affection for her. That pleasant phase began to wane soon after Zuko’s fire first manifested, and it became clear that despite his above-average status, he was not the incredibly powerful offspring Ozai had hoped for in joining Sozin’s bloodline to the Avatar’s. Ursa had seen the disappointment on his face, the frustration that Zuko would not outshine Lu Ten and thereby upstage the brother in whose shadow he had lived his entire life. Even then, he’d at least tried to nurture the boy into something he could be proud of. He was never soft, but at first, he had not been cruel either.

But with every passing year, with every tale that reached court of Iroh’s successes as a general, with every bit of praise and honor the Fire Lord heaped atop his firstborn, Ozai’s jealous rage had only intensified, and the poisonous glares the prince gave his own firstborn behind his back became more frequent. The maturing of Azula, and the rapid manifestation of her obvious firebending talents, had been the final straw. Ozai began to see himself in his prodigious daughter, and his despised older brother in his less able son, who was to be his heir simply because of birthright. Any bonds that might have existed between parent and child dissolved away, until it came to the point where their own father actively seemed to derive joy in watching Azula humiliate Zuko, as if it were some sort of twisted revenge for his own lifelong neglect in favor of Iroh.

It had been in the aftermath of one such incident, when she’d demanded that he do something to curb the ever-worsening behavior of the daughter that refused to heed her mother, that Ozai had first struck her. He’d shoved her to the ground in a cold fury, had told her that one of such _lowly_ stock had no right to make demands of a prince, and that he would not be questioned by one of his own household. Ursa had stared up into her husband’s eyes, had seen something icy and reptilian staring back, and had known in that moment that any genuine love for his wife, for Zuko, or even for Azula herself had long since vanished. If indeed it had ever existed at all. The unsubtle insinuation that things could become so much worse for herself, for her elderly mother and cousins back home, and for her beloved son if she persisted in attempting to “unman” him hadn’t even been necessary to hammer the point home.

She made a brief effort for the sake of those happier times, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to feel even a hint of sadness that he was finally gone.

 _You made your choices,_ Ursa thought grimly. _And you have your reward._

Deliberately, the princess turned her gaze away, and never laid eyes on Ozai again.

Two lesser Fire Sages, dressed in white, approached either side of the ceremonial sarcophagus. With one carefully synchronized move, both men unleashed blasts of fire that enveloped both of the oil-soaked bodies. The yellow-orange flames immediately blazed taller than most men, licking the decorative precious metal roof. The smell of charring flesh mixed with that of the heavy ritual incense, and Ursa fought the temptation to wrinkle her nose. Instead, she gestured just slightly, and her son braced himself.

“As was your dying wish, great Azulon, the succession continues with the line of your second son,” Sheng continued. “With the tragic loss of Prince Ozai, the crown now passes to _his_ firstborn son.”

At that, the eleven-year-old prince stepped forwards, directly to the front of the funeral pyre. Dressed in brand-new clothes of brilliant white and shining gold, his usual phoenix tail replaced by an unadorned topknot courtesy of the royal spa, Ursa could still tell he was nervous from the way that he walked. He knelt at the top of the stairs, and she wished she could see his face from where she stood.

“I crown you,” the older man raised the venerable relic high, “Fire Lord Zuko!”

The High Sage gingerly lowered the crown onto her son’s topknot. Even from here she could tell that it looked oversized. Before Sheng could back off or any bows could be given, the young boy raised his voice in his best approximation of a royal command. It was a bit high-pitched.

“I do not yet deem myself ready to assume these duties,” Zuko said, holding up one hand to call the ceremony to a halt and doing his best to be heard.

“Your majesty?” Sheng asked, as though he had not known this was coming.

“Therefore, in accordance with tradition and ancient custom,” he declared, rising again to his feet with only a slight tremor along his spine. “It is my will that while I come of age and c-complete my studies, that the power of the Dragon Throne should be justly exercised in my stead by a faithful regent,” The new Fire Lord held out his right hand to gesture to the woman behind him. “My mother, Princess Ursa.”

Ursa smiled. He’d remembered all the lines and only stumbled once in front of such a large crowd. She was so proud of him.

“Is this then truly your will, Fire Lord Zuko?” the sage asked. “That another shall rule in your place until you are of age?”

“It is,” her son nodded once, his voice strong and clearer.

“And Princess Ursa,” Sheng continued, and she stepped forward. “Do you then accept the will of the Fire Lord, to take on the honor and burden of leading the Fire Nation in the name of your son?”

This ritual wasn’t strictly necessary for a legal regency, but to have the new Fire Lord and Fire Sages formally proclaim it in the one place where all the capital would be watching would go a long way to adding popular legitimacy to the new leadership and dispel any rumors of instability at the top. Seeing as Ozai’s bride had effectively been a political nonentity until quite literally the night before, every little bit helped.

The princess took a deep breath, then nodded once. “I do,” she proclaimed loudly for all to hear.

“Then let it be done according to the Fire Lord’s will,” he replied. “Kneel, your highness.”

Ursa took one step down the massive flight of stairs, symbolically accepting that she was only a temporary ruler of a lower rank than her son, and then sank smoothly to her knees. The marble was hard and uncomfortable for a woman unused to physical hardship, the sharp edge of the step dug in even through her white robes, but she kept her face carefully controlled. It was vital that the broader public did not see her falter so easily. Behind her, Zuko removed the crown from his own head – no one else had the right to do so in public – and handed it carefully back to Sheng.

 _I’m sorry, Iroh,_ she thought mournfully in that moment. Her brother-in-law had never been anything but kind to her, it felt so hideously ungrateful to take part in stealing what was rightfully his right after he had suffered such a horrific loss. _If there’s ever a way to make this up to you someday, I swear by Agni I’ll do it._

“Hail to Ursa!” The High Sage said, as he lowered the golden flame headpiece into its place on her topknot. “Hail to the Fire Lady Dowager!” 

Hundreds of banners dipped low and the massive crowd ritually abased itself as the new Fire Lady rose slowly to her feet. Ursa’s golden eyes swept out over the sea of people on their hands and knees, far more than she had seen gathered in a very long time. The former princess felt something in her gut clench tightly. She could only pray she’d just done the right thing.


	4. New Lives

The celebratory feast that traditionally marked the beginning of a new Fire Lord’s rule was a rather more muted affair than might be expected, to say the least. With the palace under heavy lockdown by the guards, the nobility in a barely-concealed panic about an assassin who could kill a prince and flee unscathed and unidentified into the night, and the simple fact that Zuko’s ascension had been neither predicted nor particularly wanted by anyone, few of those who were allowed to show up were in much of a celebrating mood. No one dared say anything aloud with the Royal Procession so close at hand, but just from the way that some of the lords and ladies looked at the Fire Lady and her son, Ursa could tell they were wondering how long it would be before General Iroh returned home and quietly deposed the whole lot of them. Truthfully, she wasn’t sure that she would mind that much if he did. The man who had just lost his only son, who had vowed over the grave of his late wife never to wed again, would hardly be looking to whittle his shrunken family down any further.

The whole dinner proved a quiet and formal affair, the sort of thing Ozai had preferred but Ursa had never much enjoyed. There were greetings, well-wishes, toasts, speeches, ritual blessings… but no true human warmth to any of it. The Fire Lady barely knew any of these people, and they in turn barely knew her or her children. They were more puzzled and frightened than excited by what was happening, and by and large she supposed they expected this whole incident to be a temporary aberration that would be solved when a real prince came by to take charge of the situation. She almost swore she could read the lips of Lady Kai’an, a pretty young thing in pink and white, muttering to a neighbor about Azulon going senile.

Still, the ritual of it demanded that the meal last well into the night, unsatisfying and half-hearted as the whole affair was for most everyone involved. Rice wine was involved after a while, though Ursa herself drank little and refused to let more than a sip pass through the lips of her children. By the time that the whole thing was over, both Zuko and Azula looked bored and half-asleep, and she wasn’t doing much better. Taking off the crown and robes and collapsing into a massively oversized bed that she no longer had to share with anyone came as quite the relief.

The next morning’s breakfast was a much more modest affair – save of course for the new robes of office that Ursa was to wear, with their flaring black shoulders rimmed in gold. Zuko didn’t seem to mind much, but the prolonged stare Azula gave her when she first appeared in the doorway worried her more than a little. Regardless, the reduced family ate together in relative calm, and she was at least pleased to see that neither of her children were overtly antagonizing the other this morning.

The morning meal was drawing to a close when the servants arrived, bearing scrolls for each of the little heirs. Zuko looked down at his rather glumly, while his sister seemed more puzzled than anything. The nominal Fire Lord had to leave first, escorted to an early-morning session on some of the elementary principles of Fire Nation statecraft after a few encouraging words and a pat on the back from his mother.

“Mom,” Azula spoke up almost immediately after her brother was gone, peering down at the scroll, “someone messed up on here.” 

“Hmm?” the new ruler looked over the princess’ shoulder but spotted nothing obviously amiss. “Everything looks correct to me. What’s the matter, sweetheart?”

“There’s only two hours of firebending training on my schedule,” her daughter said.

“Azula,” Ursa raised an eyebrow, “that’s the standard advanced curriculum allotment for children your age.”

“Dad had me doing six every day at least, though. Sometimes eight, if we took time out of history classes.”

_Why does that not surprise me?_

“There’s more to a princess’ life than learning more ways to throw fire,” she replied. “Don’t you want to be a well-rounded young lady?”

“Painting, calligraphy, music, _etiquette_?” Azula made a face. “How is any of that supposed to help me? I need more about firebending and tactics to be stronger, not this stuff.”

“What do you suppose that you need those things _for_ , dear?” the Fire Lady asked in a worried tone. “Why do you think they should dominate your education to the exclusion of all else?”

“I’ll need them for when I go to war, where else?” she said matter-of-factly, as if that were the most obvious thing in the world.

“Go to… go to war?!” Ursa’s eyes bulged. “Azula, where in the world did you get the idea that you were _going to war_?!”

Her little daughter cocked her head curiously, and something inside the Fire Lady’s heart melted. She knew right where Azula had gotten that idea.

 _My child…_ Ursa thought, _what did that man_ do _to you?_

“Azula,” she said, in a much softer voice. “You will be, at the very oldest, _fourteen_ when the war is over. We’re already inexorably winning across the continent, despite the defeat at Ba Sing Se. The return of Sozin’s Comet will see us completely victorious. Why then would you imagine I would be desperate enough to send a child to war? My own child, at that?”

“I’m not just a child,” the little girl said. “I’m a firebending prodigy. Wouldn’t I be a valuable weapon for the Fire Nation?”

“You are nine years old!” Her mother cried. “You should not even be thinking of such things, much less imagining that anyone would deploy you to the battlefield!”

“Dad said it’s never too early to start thinking about-”

“Forget what your father said!” Ursa burst out.

Azula started a little, then blinked and stared upwards.

“Azula,” the Fire Lady knelt down, putting both hands on her daughter’s shoulders and staring her straight in the eyes. “If you don’t believe anything else that I say, then believe this: I will _never_ make you go to war. I will _never_ send you off to the battlefield.”

“…Why not?” Azula looked genuinely puzzled. “I’m not your favorite.”

Ursa’s jaw dropped.

The country’s new ruler wrapped her arms completely around the little princess, pulling her in close to her chest. Azula’s little face pressed up against the elaborate black and gold silk ornamentation that marked Ursa’s robes as a Fire Lady’s.

“Listen to me,” Ursa squeezed her daughter tight, “Listen to me. No matter how angry I may sometimes get at you, you are still my daughter. You will always be my daughter. I will _always_ love you. I will _always_ care for you. I am not looking to send you away. I will _never_ look to send you away. Please,” she muttered quietly, rubbing Azula’s back with one hand, “tell me that you understand me. Tell me that you believe that.”

“I…” there was a moment’s hesitation, followed by the feel of small arms wrapping lightly around the Fire Lady’s own back. “I believe you.”

Ursa hoped desperately that that was true.

* * *

Zuko watched and listened as one of his new tutors, an old man by the name of Fa, drew another character onto the increasingly complicated web representing the imperial bureaucracy, and felt like his head was about to explode. He was supposed to be getting the _simplified_ version for his first day, but there were already over twenty different ministries and sub-ministries of the state depicted on the sheet and it wasn’t even done yet.

It was almost as bad as that time when he was seven and Azula had stolen his favorite stuffed turtleduck. He’d looked for it all afternoon, only for her to stand outside his window that very night and set the toy’s head on fire right in front of him, grinning all the while. Mom had been furious. Dad said not to worry about it, that she was just playing around as little girls do.

“Fire Lord Zuko,” Fan’s voice interrupted his bad memory.

“Whuh?” Zuko looked up, from where he’d been staring down at his own sheet of paper and the various scribbles contained on it.

“Your majesty, it is _crucial_ that you understand every aspect of the governance of our empire if you’re to prove an effective successor to your illustrious grandfather,” he told the boy.

“But I was paying attention, honest!” 

“Really? Then recite for me what I just explained regarding the differences between the Sub-Ministry of Yields and the Sub-Ministry of Allocation within the greater Ministry of Agriculture.”

“Umm… one is about figuring out how much food there is and the other is about deciding where it gets sent to?”

“…Okay, admittedly that was an easy one,” the old man replied. “But I still saw you not paying attention while I was talking,” he crossed his arms and tapped one foot on the ground. “And that will simply not do. If you persist in this, I will have to bring it to your mother’s attention.”

Being Fire Lord _stunk_. Zuko couldn’t imagine why Dad had wanted the job.

 _Dad…_ The young Fire Lord sighed and shook his head, ignoring the glare he got from his teacher.

He missed Dad. True, Prince Ozai hadn’t been the most… affectionate of dads, but he was still Dad. The ruler to be felt sure that Father really did love his son under it all. He was just under a lot of pressure to live up to Uncle’s legacy in front of his own dad, and that’s why he pushed Zuko so hard. He had just wanted his son to be strong and clever, like Azula was, in case the burden of leading the country ever fell to him. That wasn’t such a bad thing, was it?

He hadn’t known Grandpa well enough to feel much about him, but Lu Ten had told him years ago that Azulon had a softer side that came out when you spent enough time around him. Zuko wished he had gotten to see that before his distant grandfather passed. He wished that Father was here to take this job if Uncle didn’t want it, and maybe that once he didn’t have to work so hard to try and impress his own dad then he’d have taken it easier on Zuko. He hoped Mom would find whoever killed him soon and put him in the dungeon forever.

At least he could take comfort in the fact that Azula had been lying, again. Grandpa and Dad would never have done that to him, not really. And at least Mom was still here.

“Fire Lord Zuko!” Fan’s voice suddenly cut in again. “What Sub-Ministry performs naval procurement functions within the Ministry of War?”

“Um…” the young boy paused, then offered a feeble grin.

His teacher was looking less than amused.

* * *

 _Mother is trying to weaken me,_ Azula told herself silently. _There’s no other explanation._

The young princess sat in a small palace courtyard with an older woman named Anzi, a broad sheet of white paper before her and a brush in hand. A broad palette of colors was spread out to her right-hand side, with a small assortment of finely shaped fruit set in front of her. Her soft-voiced, slightly wrinkled tutor was taking the time to carefully demonstrate how to get smooth, precise strokes of pigment on her own paper, set up for display right where Azula could see it. They were beginning with simple shapes, arranged in a basic pattern. Despite her excellent hand-eye coordination, the princess was finding to her own annoyance that her efforts to copy a basic apple were coming through looking more like an ill-proportioned red blob.

This was time-wasting nonsense, just as Father had always said. What good would it do a princess of the world’s mightiest empire to know about art? It might be fine for a lowly merchant or some pampered aristocratic housewife to learn how to produce beautiful things for their betters’ pleasure, but her destiny was to crush her enemies beneath her heel and dominate the earth. Knowing how to paint wouldn’t help her do that and was therefore something that ought to be discarded without a second thought.

What had she been thinking yesterday? Wondering if Mom’s worldview might have more to it than simple weakness of character? The whole idea of sacrificing firebending time for these worthless new classes proved that Ursa’s path was useless to her. There was no hidden strength to be found here.

Obviously, the sheer surprise and terror of losing Dad so suddenly had gotten to her, had cracked her mental defenses for a short while. That was a weakness Father would not approve of, one she would have to purge on her own. But she could do it. She was a true prodigy, after all. Mom approved only of comfortable softness like her own, but Azula wouldn’t succumb to neediness and weakness like Ursa’s, no matter how tempting that her warm embrace might be.

Of course, it was inevitable that Ursa would attempt to weaken Azula if she wasn’t going to try and dispose of her outright. Mom knew deep inside how pathetic she herself was. She obviously couldn’t have her daughter managing to follow through on her promise to challenge and crush her precious little Zuzu in an Agni Kai when the time came after all, still less dispose of Ozai’s weaker offspring altogether in a completely legal manner while poor Ursa could only sit by and weep. She feared her daughter, and rightly so, and as such would need to do all she could to suppress Azula’s inherent superiority. _Something_ would have to be done over the next few years to deal with the errant prodigy before she could threaten Mother’s favorite. 

Even when that idea had first occurred to her, Azula hadn’t imagined that Mom would have the steel to outright eliminate her unwanted child personally. But continuing her little monster’s training as before and then sending her on a boat over the horizon at first opportunity, as was practically family tradition at this point? That had sounded convenient. Somewhere where Ozai’s protegee would be far out of the way, and unable to establish herself as a political player. And if the princess happened to meet a sticky end on some distant battlefield where the sight of her corpse wouldn’t unduly upset Ursa’s delicate stomach, so much the better. But the older woman had seemed so adamant that that wasn’t the case, that she had no such plans, and the little girl hadn’t been able to spot any sign of dishonesty on her face.

Maybe Azula would wind up married off to some nobleman in one of the more distant colonies if she didn’t turn out “right”, then? Such a marriage contract was well within an ordinary noble mother’s power to arrange with the consent of the father at a young age, still less a Fire Lady’s. It would be a cushy enough existence not to make Mom feel faint, and far enough away to render her effectively harmless to Zuzu. Unworthy of her, but at least it probably beat whatever fate Father had ultimately had in mind for her older brother.

The middle-aged lady was droning on about shading and something called color theory now, and the princess imagined herself setting the paper and brush in front of her on fire, then the teacher’s skirt as well. That would be amusing, as well as a fitting punishment for daring to waste a princess’ valuable time. Under Dad, she probably could have completely gotten away with something like that as long as the actual burns inflicted were relatively minor and the tutor wasn’t prominent enough to cause offense to someone important. But Mom had made it very clear that things were going to be different from now on, and she quite literally held the power of life and death over everyone in the palace. So, however irritable she felt, Azula was forced to just sit back and take it.

Whatever she said, Ursa did not properly love Azula, of that the princess could be sure. Even her love for Zuzu was malformed and improper, more a result of crude sentimentalism and weakness than anything. It was based on how comfortable he made her more than a rational analysis of his worthiness of it. So how could she know how to properly love her superior daughter? Father had always said that Mother merely feared her power, feared what she could one day become with proper guidance, like his.

Love did not demand that she be weak so a sad old woman wouldn’t feel afraid of her. Azula knew what being truly loved felt like. It felt like the smile in the corner of Father’s mouth when he witnessed her master a new move. It felt like the pride in his eyes when she proved her supremacy by dominating and intimidating her lessers or humiliating her pathetic brother. It felt like being valued most because she was so much better than everyone else and it wanted her to become more valuable. Real love was devoid of sentiment, like Father.

Proper love meant that she did what she wanted, because what she wanted was correct, and was elevated for being so perfect. It meant rewards for her power and approval for her ruthlessness because those qualities made her strong and valuable, not discipline or demands that she change for the worse. Since she was so much better in every way that mattered it meant more rewards and approval for her than Zuko. All of Mother’s warm hugs and soft words could never change that.

Even if they did feel nice.

But… there was a niggling voice of doubt at the back of Azula’s mind that refused to be silenced so easily. Father had said Mother feared her because she was so superior, so much stronger in body and mind than weak Ursa, who only wanted to feel safe by dragging Azula down to her level like she did with Zuko. If Mom properly loved her daughter, he’d told her, then she would want her to be strong and clever like Dad, because that was best for her and she deserved only the best. But then all of Father’s vaunted power had _failed_ him, come the end. Mother had wound up with everything that he had ever wanted, while he had died miserably, lacking even the dignity of being able to fight back. So how could cunning and fighting skills be the most important things for her to learn if they were so easily overcome?

What if… she had been wrong? What did it mean if rewarding ruthlessness and displays of power and indulging her every whim weren’t the truest displays of love? Had Mother really been on to something the whole time? Could she be on to anything now? No, Azula reassured herself, that was impossible. She was too smart, too clever, too aware of the true nature of things to be so easily misled. Maybe she had called a few events incorrectly, but she could not be wrong on such a fundamental question of existence.

As she sat there, brush in hand, struggling to put color to paper in a pleasing fashion, the nagging questions continued to pop up in her mind. And Azula always beat them down with the same answers, telling herself over and over again that she was certain, she was correct, she was perfect, and her surety would return in due time.

Azula always lied.

* * *

Fire Lady Ursa was a woman used to a certain level of material affluence. Her family estate back home on Wennuan Island was modest compared to many of those in the capital, but it had never lacked for quiet comfort. As Princess, her household had received a substantial stipend from the Royal Treasury, and Ozai had had no small amount of personal wealth. So, when she had first gone to look at the status of the Royal Household’s finances to start the day, the new interim ruler had thought she’d had some idea of what to expect.

She hadn’t.

The fantastic level of wealth recorded on these ledgers was simply mind-boggling to behold, so much so that Ursa had rubbed her eyes a few times just to make sure that she wasn’t seeing things. Between regular income in the form of tariffs, taxes, gifts, plunder from the war front, and innumerable investments as well as the existing reserves, the sheer amount of money now at her disposal would make throwing around tens of thousands of gold pieces no more concerning than replacing a worn pair of shoes. Fire Lord Azulon clearly hadn’t wasted a thing over his three quarters of a century as the Fire Nation’s absolute ruler.

 _He was more careful with coin than the lives of his grandchildren,_ the Fire Lady wrinkled her nose in disgust as she peered through another thick tome of meticulously documented figures.

Still, whatever else he had been, the old man had not managed one of the longest and most successful reigns in Fire Nation history by being a poor administrator. Azulon’s last gift to his successor came in a form of a well-organized bureaucratic apparatus spread throughout the length and breadth of the empire, feeding a constant stream of reports and queries to the palace. A pile of papers was already stacked neatly on her new desk when she arrived in the Fire Lord’s personal office, having only a day’s worth of backlog and already several inches thick.

 _Governor Lee of Jingling died of a sudden chill?_ Ursa thought as she read just one of the papers, and wished she had a clue who that even was. She supposed that she’d have to consult Minister Xi of Domestic Affairs regarding a potential replacement. Maybe Li Jie, Azulon’s old spymaster, had some files on relevant nobility in the region.

Azulon would have known just who to pick, of course. The canny old man would probably have already lined up the perfect successor to fit neatly into his tightly ordered administrative machine that had maintained his rule for so long. Until age had caught up with him during his last years, he had always had such a sharp mind and nearly perfect memory. He would have remembered just who in that part of the world he could count on to be a loyal ally to the throne, and who might harbor corrupt ambitions. Ursa, who had no such knowledge of who outside the palace was an ally and who a potential foe, was not quite so lucky. She sighed and set that document aside for later, vowing she’d resolve the issue after a few private chats with some advisors.

There were so many other documents pertaining to issues that the new ruler only barely understood, if at all. Permissions for building damns and factories, reports from naval squadrons patrolling Earth Kingdom waters, requests for funding for monuments and public works, proposed additions to the educational system, estimates for the expected draw from next year’s round of conscription, progress reports on the new military shipyard under construction at Zhuzao, and so many others. As she read over one proposal for a vastly expanded network of bathhouses in the colony of Bai Haian to deal with the increasing outbreaks of disease in the region, it finally dawned on Ursa that this was her life now. There would be no more long, sunny, carefree afternoons, when Ozai was far away and she could pretend all was peaceful and calm. No, now the weight of an empire and the lives of everyone in it rested squarely on her shoulders.

 _Sun Father give me strength_ , she thought with eyes closed.

Ursa did the best that she could on her first day. Where she felt that the papers that she got and the small library's worth of books stacked on shelves throughout the office contained enough information to make a decision on her own, she did so. Where they did not, or the subject matter was so utterly unfamiliar to her that she did not feel qualified to judge one way or another, she set it aside for the moment and vowed to return after consulting with someone who knew what they were talking about. She still worried when she affixed her signature and seal to several of the scrolls, approving or rejecting various proposals simply on the weight of her own judgement. But she was conscious that she could not bring everything before councilors without appearing excessively weak and indecisive, which would only encourage people to plot against her.

It took the Fire lady Dowager a good many hours to work her way through everything that had turned up on her desk, going straight through the morning and taking lunch right where she was before continuing well into the afternoon. It was two and a half hours past midday when Ursa could finally sit back and breathe, and that was only by postponing a number of decisions until later. She sat back in her new chair, mentally drained from the unfamiliar effort, and rang for a servant to bring her some tea. When the handmaiden returned with it, the ruler dispatched her to fetch Commander Aiguo as well. He, at the very least, had proven trustworthy enough and she needed some pieces of advice more urgently than others.

There was a war meeting she would need to attend today, after all.

* * *

Present for the late afternoon meeting were Generals Ten, Bujing, Akio, and Jianjun, and Admirals Chan, Bohai, Jinhai, and Kaito. The eight highest-ranking officers left in the capital, those of Fire Lord Azulon’s military council that were not currently abroad. One very prominent place at the table, the one closest to and at the right hand of the Dragon Throne, was to be left conspicuously empty. Ursa took one last calming breath to steady her nerves, swallowed, and pushed the curtain aside.

One and all, the faces that turned to look at her as she entered were either completely stoic or _just_ as deferential as protocol demanded and not a hint more. Several of them shot brief glares at Ursa as she passed, when they thought she wasn’t looking. These were career military men, and she knew they unanimously would have preferred the great war hero General Iroh on the throne to the untried, untested wife of a second son. Truthfully, so would she. But circumstances had conspired to make trying to wait weeks for his return too risky for her children to make that an acceptable option.

Ursa didn’t know anything more about war than what rudimentary things a few hours frantic reading and last-minute conversations with Commander Aiguo could tell her. It had only been at the latter’s advice that she declined to bring bodyguards into the meeting itself. That would only have confirmed her fear and weakness in the officers’ eyes. The throne room had already been swept for assassins, and the assembled command staff weren’t about to attack her openly with so many guards posted just outside, no matter how many of them might secretly prefer her dead to seated up above them. It was crucial, the old soldier had told her, that Azulon’s general staff perceive their new leader as strong and unwavering from the very beginning if she was ever to command even a hint of respect in their eyes.

 _Right,_ Ursa did her best to keep her face emotionless, despite feeling like her heart was caught in her throat. _Strong and unwavering._

The new Fire Lady at least managed to ascend the steps to the throne with due grace and poise, before making her way over to Sozin’s venerable seat. Taking one more gulp of air, she concentrated and sent twin bursts of fire into the metal, oil-filled grooves cut into the wooden floor on either side of the throne. The flames that erupted by her will were soft and yellow, with barely a hint of orange visible anywhere, and noticeably lower than those she’d always seen conjured by Azulon. But at least they were there, and she should be able to maintain them with what meager bending talent she had. 

Ursa settled onto the throne for the first time, cross-legged and straight-backed, and called the meeting to order.

The first few minutes were a simple review of the current strategic situation on the Earth Kingdom continent, as portrayed by small stone figurines on a massive map spread across the floor. It was probably conducted more for her benefit than that of the officers’. The picture that they painted was not a cheery one.

After the death of Prince Lu Ten and the failure of the Siege of Ba Sing Se, the Fire Nation’s vast army in the northeastern Earth Kingdom was in shambles. Reports from the front indicated that morale, already shaky from almost two straight years of grinding siege warfare against the most heavily fortified city on the planet, had all but collapsed in the wake of their retreat. Their supplies were running low, their casualties were high, they were only a few weeks from the onset of the harsh northern winter, and from what little could be discerned from such a distance their famed general appeared to have fallen into what could either be battle shock or a complete depressive fugue. Ursa felt that she understood completely. Losing a fine young man like Lu Ten as a nephew she hadn’t seen properly in years was painful enough, to lose him as an only son…

“For nearly two years the Fire Nation has invested nearly all of our efforts on the continent in forcing a breach into the so-called impenetrable city, turning down several opportunities for offensives elsewhere in order to feed more troops to General Iroh’s assault, I might add,” General Bujing concluded his part of the overview by looking around at the others. “We cannot allow all of that effort to go waste.”

“What are you saying?” asked Admiral Jinhai.

“I’m saying that if General Iroh is no longer fit to lead our army, then he must be replaced at once with a new commanding officer that is.”

 _Like you, I wonder?_ Ursa thought, frowning a little.

Bujing clenched his fist. “We must press the attack now, before it is too late! The earthbenders may have reclaimed their battered outer wall, but they will not have had time to affect adequate repairs, nor to replenish their own heavy losses. If we immediately resume the offensive under a proper commander, we can force the breach once again before they can do more than erect small temporary walls to close it.”

“We were in there once before, General,” General Ten pointed out. “And found merely miles of farmland stretched out in front of us, with just another wall at the end of it all. How will this time be different?”

“Our troops made their way inside the enemy’s Agrarian Zone before and merely sought to occupy it. This time,” the man smiled in a way that the Fire Lady found both deeply unpleasant and disturbingly familiar, “I propose that we burn it. The harvest season is not yet over, and surely the war must have disrupted their efforts to bring food into the city in any case. If we can force our way back inside quickly enough, we can slaughter their livestock and set wildfires to scorch their fields down to the bedrock before the cold sets in. Let the earthbenders try and eat their own rocks over the winter!”

“You realize that if we raze the Agrarian Zone, there will be no way to feed more than a small portion of Ba Sing Se for months even if the city does surrender?” Admiral Chan pointed out. “Our logistical infrastructure in the region simply couldn’t handle that kind of demand.”

“Your point being?” General Jianjun asked with a raised eyebrow.

“It seems… wasteful,” the admiral replied.

“And speaking of waste,” General Ten cut in, “you seem to be assuming that our army is in any fit state to fight right now. All our reports point to the opposite being the case. They’re exhausted, demoralized, and low on supplies. They may not even be capable of forcing the breach at all.”

“Our reports are filtered through the perspective of General Iroh, and thus cannot be deemed wholly reliable at the moment,” Bujing declared.

Several of the officers around the table visibly bristled at that insinuation, Ten outright glared at other general.

“All I am saying is that the picture being painted is heavily colored by the loss of one particular soldier, and thus should not be taken as being wholly free from bias,” the man went on. “Our army is likely to be in better fighting shape than is being portrayed, with higher spirits than its current leadership.”

“And what if it isn’t?” Chan leaned forward. “We risk the complete collapse of an army of over two hundred thousand men if we attempt to force them back into action prematurely and they are defeated again.”

“A risk well worth taking, if it means the eradication of the Earth Kingdom’s greatest remaining stronghold,” Bujing countered. “And a risk that could have been avoided altogether if not for the… excessive timidity of its current commander.”

“You overstep yourself,” General Akio hissed across the map. “General Iroh is no coward.”

“If that were true then the death of a single soldier would not-”

“ **Enough!** ” Ursa cut in, raising her voice for the first time during the proceedings. Eight pairs of eyes suddenly swung around to face her, while she did her level best to make the flames around her flare. There was a moment of pregnant silence in the throne room, broken only by the crackle of yellow fire.

“Enough, General Bujing,” the Fire Lady went on. “We have heard your proposed plan of action. Now,” she looked out over the rest of them and prayed that her face didn’t show her nerves, “let us hear if there is an alternative.”

“If I may, my lady?” General Ten asked.

“You may,” she nodded at him.

“Our navy retains full control over West Lake, does it not, Admiral?” he asked, looking pointedly at Jinhai.

“The Earth Kingdom’s understrength fleet of obsolete wooden ships hasn’t been a serious threat to the Fire Navy in decades, and you know that perfectly well,” the man nodded. “Our ships move freely across everything west of Serpent’s Pass.”

“We still have some weeks before winter sets in,” Ten said, reaching out with a stick to push a number of small figurines across the map. “Enough time for our navy to ferry our army northwest, across the lake and out of reach of any enemy counterattack. We can remove our soldiers to the colonies and bases we have scattered up and down the coastline. Our troops could then rest and regroup over the winter, receive supplies and reinforcements, and rotate out frontline units in need of leave. Then we could be sure our largest army on the continent would be in a fit state to fight come the spring.”

“And give up on taking Ba Sing Se?!” Jianjun sounded outraged.

“What do we need to take the city for right this moment, save to sate our impatience?” Ten countered, looking around for support. “In five short years the walls of Ba Sing Se will mean nothing. Why do we have to gamble so many of our troops now in a second assault with such dim prospects of success? What do we gain from it?”

Some of the other high officers nodded along, though not all of them.

“To accept such a defeat meekly and come home with our tails between our legs is a slap in the face to the honor of the Fire Nation!” Bujing said.

“And to needlessly sacrifice tens of thousands more loyal sons for an even dimmer prospect of victory than before isn’t?” Admiral Chan asked.

“Those men offered up their lives to our nation the moment they put on their uniforms,” he argued. “To die in battle for their homeland’s glory is the greatest honor any soldier could hope for.”

“Are you volunteering to be in the front rank of the charge, then?” Ten asked, getting a few slight chuckles from some of his allies.

“Don’t be absurd,” Bujing bristled and shook his head. “My duty lies elsewhere.”

“I don’t think that’s your decision to make,” Ten said with a faint smile, eyes wandering up to the throne. “Your majesty,” he asked, “does this proposal meet with your approval?”

A number of the council glared disapprovingly at him, but he kept staring straight up at her. Their eyes met briefly, and Ursa thought that the canny old general already had a good idea of whose side their new liege might come down on.

“…It does,” she told the assembled men, some of whom looked mildly surprised while others scowled. “General Bujing, your plan asks us to risk too much for prospects of success that are too slim. General Iroh has ever been a loyal and capable commander. I see no reason to presume that his assessment of the situation on the ground is anything but accurate.”

“My lady,” Bujing said, with just a hint of condescension to his tone, “I understand that your experience in these matters is limited. Perhaps-”

“I did not ask for any further input from you, General,” the Fire Lady put on her finest stern glare and looked right down at him. “General Ten’s plan offers the Fire Nation better prospects of future success.”

_And avoids needless deaths._

“Therefore,” she did her level best to sound regal, “let it be done.”

There was a tense moment as their eyes met, where Ursa wondered if the general would openly challenge her authority. She was neither the master firebender nor the seasoned veteran that her predecessor on this seat had been, nor was she of royal blood in her own right. Her claim to lead rested almost entirely on a forged will, the expressed wishes of an eleven-year-old boy, and the fact that General Iroh had happened to be far away from the center of power when his father expired. Very few of the nation’s elite were yet heavily invested in the new regime. One strong push might just be enough to topple it.

But… they were all here, sitting in the heart of what fragile power she did possess. The Imperial Firebenders, and thus the palace itself, were at least loyal to the Royal Family and by extension its last adult member in Caldera City. General Bujing did not have the social status to demand the right of Agni Kai with the likes of even a Fire Lady Dowager, no one would think it improper for such a challenge to be met with his being thrown into a cell for insolence. Perhaps most importantly of all, no officer of any rank had survived long under the likes of Azulon by being especially uppity, and old habits die hard.

“As you will it then, my lady,” Bujing said, looking down and bowing his head briefly.

The rest of the war meeting was simply a matter of details. Now that General Ten’s plan had been decided upon, all that was left was to arrange the particulars of how best to accomplish it. On this, Ursa had little to say. She had no knowledge of the speed and troop transport capacities of _Empire-class_ battleships versus those of _Azulon-class_ battlecruisers or ordinary _Sovereign-class_ cruisers, nor how much food and coal the average division could be expected to consume at rest in the winter months, nor an understrength armored regiment’s requirements for machine oil and replacement parts, nor the comparative capacities of various colonies for hosting fighting men. Many of the figures thrown around were completely foreign to her, but she kept her face level and occasionally nodded when it looked like a consensus was being reached. She hoped Fire Lord Azulon had considered intervening on such minor matters beneath his attention.

It took more than an hour and a half to iron out all of the details, but at last a general strategic plan for the following months was formed. There was much for the Fire Nation to do to prepare its armies for the general withdrawal and hunkering down at the end of the campaigning season, so she dismissed the meeting with all the authority and good grace she could muster. As protocol demanded, Ursa rose first from her seat and proceeded to sweep from the room as majestically as she could. Though her head hurt from the stress of maintaining even those low yellow flames for such an extended period, she brushed past the curtains feeling cautiously triumphant. She had made it through her first war meeting without any major faux pas that she had noticed, and made it clear to the upper ranks of the military that while she would take advice she would not simply be pushed around, however inexperienced she might be.

 _Maybe,_ she thought, _I… really can do this._

She made it three whole days before the first assassination attempt.


	5. Secrets and Lies

It wasn’t until her third day in her new station, mere hours after receiving word that General Iroh had acceded to her request to return home, that Ursa found herself with any time on her hands. The Fire Nation was a well-ordered autocracy, but it was also highly centralized and very much used to receiving directives from the top. That meant most of the biggest decisions invariably found their way to the Fire Lord’s attention, and that meant a great deal of time spent pouring over books and reports behind a desk, consulting with ministers and advisors, or hearing petitions on a throne. A day of backlog and the headache of imperial transition only added to the workload. But eventually a time came when the biggest issues demanding her immediate attention had received an answer, the children were busy with their tutors, and the Fire Lady had a small part of one sunny afternoon to herself.

The last few days had been stressful, to put it mildly. Seizing a position that she had never trained for or aspired to turned out to mean a lot of on the job learning even in such a short time, with the promise of so much more to come. She barely knew what she was doing even with detailed reports and extensive bureaucratic records constantly at her fingertips and could only pray her decisions weren’t treading too harshly on someone’s toes by complete accident. But no one, Ursa hoped, would blame the new interim ruler for desiring a few moments of rest.

The many private gardens in the villas surrounding the main palace structure had always been calming, their quiet beauty a fond relief from the daily realities of court life as the wife of the second prince. They were even better when the children were there, presuming of course they weren’t fighting, but even when she was alone, they had always been a soothing balm for the many troubles plaguing her mind. That, she hoped, would remain unchanged.

Of course, getting there was a bit more complicated than before. As a mere princess by marriage and court lady, walking between the palace and the gardens in the company of a few servants or even alone was far from unheard of, as Fire Lady with an assassin lurking about things would be different. It obviously wouldn’t do for even an interim ruler to be seen as on the same level as the masses – a palanquin was simply necessary. And likewise allowing her to wander out of sight of protectors was utterly out of the question. All in all, her new role meant that the simple act of walking out a gate and across two streets now required several minutes of preparation and a small entourage. Another thing she was just going to have to get used to.

By the time that the outer palace gates creaked open to admit Ursa’s little procession, a small crowd had had time to gather. It had always been a scene whenever the Fire Lord or Crown Prince Iroh left the palace, back when the former had been alive and the latter had been around, but seeing dozens of ordinary citizens drop their normal afternoon activities and surround the cordon of guards just to catch a glimpse of her was honestly a little unnerving. She didn’t think such a small thing warranted so much time spent or attention given.

When her palanquin moved, the crowd of curious onlookers moved with it, only growing larger as more curious passersby stopped whatever they were doing for a glance. As their numbers swelled, the crowd grew bolder and pressed more closely into the Imperial Firebenders, who responded by tightening their cordon and shoving back hard whenever anyone got too near for their liking. Out of the corner of her eye, the Fire Lady saw a middle-aged man get pushed forward by a mass of people behind him, then get knocked backwards onto the ground by a quick jab from one of the soldiers. Feeling a surge of pity for the man and certainly not wanting him to get trampled, she opened her mouth to ask someone to help him up.

That was the moment she saw the glint of steel.

Ursa had no time to react. One second, she was just about to speak, the next there was the briefest flash of sunlight reflecting off highly polished metal. Something small and almost imperceptibly fast shot through a small gap in the crowd to her left. Before she could react, before she could so much as blink, a figure in red twisted hurriedly to throw itself in the way. There was a dull thunk, followed by a muffled grunt of pain from not three feet away from where she sat. The guard moaned, then collapsed backwards against the palanquin, shaking it noticeably. By then, the screaming had already started.

Desperate assassinations on unsuspecting targets aside, Ursa was not a woman accustomed to violence. Her parents hadn’t thought it proper for a lady of breeding, one who would never be so poor as to make joining the Domestic Forces a necessity for her family, to concern herself overmuch with blood and death, and as a gentle tempered woman she’d agreed with them. Beyond a few schoolyard tussles in her youth, she’d never been in a proper fight with a prepared opponent in her life. So, it was perhaps unsurprising that her first instinct in that moment was to freeze up, as if that would somehow make her a less conspicuous target.

The Fire Lady was very fortunate that her guards were not so inclined. All around her, the crowd was beginning to surge as men and women alike noticed what had just happened, or saw the panic-stricken faces of their fellows, or were just getting shoved around by people suddenly very eager to be absolutely anywhere else. They might have swarmed over the little entourage entirely if the professional soldiers of the Royal Procession hadn’t immediately reacted by closing their lines and zeroing in on the rough space where the projectile had come from. Though the attacker could not have gone far in such a densely packed space in less than four seconds’ time, it was next to impossible to pick out an individual figure in the terrified masses.

Though they served a new liege, Ursa received a firm reminder that these were still Azulon’s men – when they fired into the crowd without hesitation.

Panicked screams and agonized wails melded with flares of orange-yellow and the smell of burning flesh as four separate men thrust out their fists and bathed the area immediately in front of them in small cones of flame. The ruler watched in shock and more than a little horror as several civilians collapsed to the white stone streets with red scorch marks on their skin, some with hair or clothes aflame. All around them, other civilians ran screaming in all directions.

The Imperial Firebenders, those that weren’t shielding their lady as closely as possible, advanced swiftly, shoving burned men and women into the ground and pinning them there with brutal efficiency. One of the men who had been singled out, a brown-haired, middle-aged fellow in the robes of a scribe with a prominent beard, a few streaks of grey on his scalp, and an ugly fresh burn on his left shoulder, forced his way up from the ground with one hand. Ursa had never seen him before in her life, but the sheer level of _hate_ visible in his eyes even through the semitransparent gauze curtains of the palanquin was enough to make her flinch.

“You’re all traitors!” the man screamed at the approaching soldiers as he drew a second knife from somewhere in his long sleeve.

He never got the chance to use it. Two of the firebenders immediately lashed out with more flames, this time far more focused. Her would-be killer was hurled backwards across the road by the sheer force of them, skin and clothes alike igniting in the waves of heat. The assailant hit the stone roughly on his back a considerable distance away, his scorched chest visible through tattered robes and his face a ruin of reddened and in places outright blackened flesh. He could barely raise his neck or crack open a single eye when three soldiers rushed forward to all but pile on top of him. As men and women in all shades of red and pink continued to scatter every which way all around them, the firebenders wrenched the man’s hands behind his back so roughly that one of his shoulders audibly dislocated, before hoisting him to his feet.

“Long… live… F-Fire Lord… I-Iroh…” the assassin spat through gritted teeth, before his head slumped forward. He hung limply in the guards’ grasp, which didn’t cause them to let up even slightly.

“My lady,” one of the guards that had remained by Ursa’s side hissed urgently, his crest identifying him as a lieutenant, “We should get you back inside without delay! He might not have been acting alone.”

Ursa stared blankly, heart hammering in her chest. The overwhelming stench of burnt flesh and cloth filled her nostrils, distance shrieks and the pained sobbing of at least seven random strangers was ringing in her ears. A soldier was lying, half-slumped and unmoving, against the side of her palanquin. Scattered about the feet of her escort were injured men and women who had committed no crime beyond being in the wrong place at the wrong time. As she half-consciously reached out one manicured hand and waved it to extinguish the still-crackling fire that had consumed half a young girl’s hair, the Fire Lady felt the crushing weight that came from the knowledge that all of this was at least partially her responsibility.

All she had wanted was to visit her favorite gardens.

“…Y-Yes,” she eventually managed, battling the nausea that was already threatening to overtake her. “Do that.”

* * *

“Private Zhi was dead before he reached the palace gates,” Commander Aiguo delivered his report to a visibly shaken Ursa several minutes later. “The blade was poisoned. Something fast-acting and extremely dangerous. It only just penetrated his chest armor and didn’t touch any of his vitals, but he still expired in under a minute.”

The Fire Lady sat behind a desk in her office, surrounded once more by tightly packed soldiers, a piping-hot kettle of ginseng tea set before her and a porcelain cup of the steaming brew clasped in both hands. She tried not to let them shake too much as she brought the beverage up to her lips for another sip of the fortifying stuff and didn’t quite succeed.

“…I’m sorry for his loss,” she bowed her head. “I didn’t think…”

“…He did his duty, ma’am,” the officer said stoically.

“That…” Ursa took another drink and did her best to seem composed. “That he did. Did he have any family?”

“I’m unaware one way or the other,” he admitted. “We were not closely acquainted.”

“Please, have someone find out for me. I want to extend my condolences personally, if possible,” she sighed heavily, looking down into her cup.

She had known, intellectually, that upon taking up this role people would be dying in her name, but to see it happen so swiftly, and so close at hand…

 _And all because of a foolish whim…_ Ursa had to fight the temptation to shake her head. _If I hadn’t decided to go out right that moment, would anyone have had to die? Was the man waiting around outside for a chance to strike, or was it a coincidence he was there today?_

“It will be done, majesty,” he bowed his head briefly.

“And…” the Fire Lady straightened up with some effort. “What of the innocents caught up in this?”

“We cannot be sure that they are all innocents,” Aiguo said, “but of those who did not openly participate in the attack on your person, most have merely first and second-degree burns. Presuming that no infections develop, our healers think they should live without excessive debilitation. There will be scarring, of course.”

 _Of course,_ she thought, feeling guilty at the thought of her own people left deformed by the consequences of a mere idle desire of hers.

“Inform the healers that they are to spare no expense in treating these people,” she told another man standing by, a scribe by the name of Tai. “The crown will cover the costs.”

_I owe them no less._

“Keep me apprised of their condition, and their readiness to receive visitors,” she continued. “I would go and see them myself, when they are suitably prepared.”

“That is very generous of you, my lady,” the man replied, in a tone which suggested that he didn’t entirely approve. Ursa frowned a little, and he lowered his head more deferentially.

“And what, Commander, of the assassin himself?” the Fire Lady asked.

“Third degree burns across his face and upper chest. He wasn’t a firebender.”

That made sense. The flesh of those blessed with Agni’s gift didn’t burn as easily as those without.

“The palace healers are doing everything they can to keep him alive for questioning, but the injuries go very deep, majesty,” he shook his head. “They tell me that it is not looking probable that he will survive the next hour.”

“I see,” she sighed deeply, then drained her cup. “Please, Commander, convey my deepest thanks to your men for their services to the crown, and my compliments on Private Zhi’s heroic dedication to duty. He will be missed. Any of them who would attend his wake are free to do so.”

“It will be done,” he nodded. “Is there… anything else you would have me say to them?” Aiguo asked slowly.

Ursa was entirely conscious that the Imperial Firebenders were the one group of people that she could least afford to alienate. They had turned down the perfect chance to play kingmaker out of loyalty to their oaths. They were the only people she could genuinely count on to have her interests in mind. If they decided to turn on her right now, she had no recourse. To reprimand them for excess zeal in the act of saving her life, when one of their own had just made the ultimate sacrifice for her, would make her look foolish and ungrateful beyond belief. That could be fatal. Not thanking any more than the dead soldier’s family in person was as close to chiding them for wounding passersby in the act of neutralizing the killer as she dared get.

“No,” she shook her head. “But I would have it that your drills be revised, effective immediately.”

“How so?”

“I would like your men to spend more time focusing on their accuracy and precision with smaller fire blasts,” she told him. “In the interests of minimizing future collateral damage.”

Aiguo stiffened a little at that remark and the implications of it, and Ursa forced herself to stare up into the eye slits in his mask, refusing to allow her eyes to blink. He might be a veteran and doubtless capable of killing her on the spot if he chose, but she was not going to allow herself to be denied this. She hoped he could respect that.

“…As you will it, Lady Ursa,” he bowed just a little at the waist. “Will there be anything else?”

“Yes, one last thing,” the Fire Lady sat back, pouring herself another cup of tea. “When you go to carry out my instructions, please send someone to fetch Royal Archivist Li Jie for me.”

* * *

Li Jie was… normal looking. Almost strangely so. When one pictured the man who had served as master of spies for the world’s greatest empire for more than two decades, one tended to imagine a cloaked, lean, hungry figure with a cunning look in his eyes and a poisoned dagger up his sleeve. One didn’t imagine a somewhat chubby man nearing the end of middle age, of middling height, with greying black hair receding noticeably around his temples. Mild grey eyes stared out of a pudgy face that was remarkable only for its lack of anything particularly remarkable. No scars, no deformities, no particularly handsome features, but none that could be called especially ugly, beyond those inflicted by a decade or more of sitting behind a desk and enjoying sweet cream and cherry tarts a little too much.

Ursa hadn’t met Azulon’s old intelligence man on more than a handful of occasions at court, and only ever briefly, and so no strong opinion on him. She supposed that he had to have been doing something right to have kept his position as long as he had, and for that reason had summoned him to attend on her for the first time. The Imperial Firebenders might be loyal, but detailed investigations and political skullduggery were not their forte. They were above that sort of thing, or at any rate were supposed to be.

“Fire Lady,” the newcomer bowed low, a model of courtesy, “it is an honor to be called upon at last. How may I serve?”

“You may rise,” she told him from where she sat. Previously she would have offered him a chair, but that sort of thing implied rough equality of station and so simply wasn’t to be done any longer, per the rules of etiquette. “I suppose you will have heard about the incident outside the palace gates by now?”

“Yes, your majesty,” he nodded, looking somber. “A despicable attack on your person, the death of a brave soldier, and an unfortunate amount of collateral damage.”

“Quite,” she paused, sizing him up carefully. “Fire Lord Azulon made it part of your business to know everything that happened in Caldera City, did he not?”

“Everything of relevance to him, my lady.”

“Then I would have you look into your records and see what you can find of my would-be murderer. I would know who it is that just tried to end me.”

“Was.”

“What?” Ursa blinked.

“Who it was, my lady,” Li Jie clarified. “The assassin expired of his wounds around ten minutes ago, while I was on my way here.”

Ursa’s eyes widened, then narrowed a bit.

_How did he know that before me?_

“The healers sent an apprentice to bring you the news, but I happened to run into her and offered to carry it to you myself, since I was already coming to you,” he went on. “I hope that I did not overstep.”

“You did,” she told him sternly. “I will forgive you this oversight, but in the future do not presume to intercept news intended for me.”

“Of course, your majesty,” the spymaster said, bowing a second time.

The Fire Lady found herself doubting very much that it was a simple matter of coincidence. She didn’t begrudge the man whose role it was to be well-informed for having sources of information inside the palace, but if he could get news of important events so quickly… what else had he known about? Ozai hadn’t exactly left her a convenient list of his conspirators.

“As to your order, of course the Royal Archives will be happy to supply you with everything we can find about the man, as soon as he can be identified.”

“He hasn’t been already?”

“The burns to his face were quite extensive, and he wasn’t carrying any form of identification. With the cooperation of the Domestic Forces, though, we should be able to pin down who it was through our registry of entrants. It may take a few days to go through them all, though.”

Not just anyone could come and go in Caldera. Some rumors said that it had been different before the war, but for as long as anyone living could remember an internal passport showing a good background and the sponsorship of a ministry, nobility, or royalty had been required to gain admittance to the highly-guarded capital of the Fire Nation. Being unable to present one to a guard if ordered was grounds for detainment. The system seemed only logical to Ursa. They could hardly have any sort of criminal riffraff or foreign spies wandering the streets of the most important city in the world.

“I see,” the ruler nodded. “Then let it be done without delay. Identify him and bring me all that we can gather about him.”

“As you wish, my lady,” Li Jie bowed his head briefly. “Is there any other manner in which I can be of assistance?”

“Yes, actually,” Ursa regarded him while sipping a little on her tea. “You have more experience with these matters than I, and I value your opinion. Tell me, who do you _think_ might be behind such a treasonous attack?”

“Quite possibly the same assassin that killed your sadly departed husband, my lady. There is an undeniable similarity in method.”

The Fire Lady blinked again. It hadn’t occurred to her before now, but that did sound like a plausible narrative, didn’t it? The assassin was both guilty of something and already dead, it surely wouldn’t be too unfair of her to use him as a scapegoat when this was all over?

“I can see your point,” she nodded, trying not to look as though she’d just had an idea. “But that doesn’t answer the larger questions. Who? Why?”

“There are a number of possible reasons, some more probable than others. I’m afraid until we have a clearer picture of who the man actually was, I am reluctant to speculate, lest I bias myself in the investigation.”

“Indulge my curiosity,” she commanded him. “Speculate for me.”

“As you will then, majesty,” Li Jei bowed, again. “The most obvious motivation is that he, and whatever backer he may or may not have had, truly was upset by Fire Lord Azulon’s last will and testament, and sought to ‘correct’ what he believed to be an error in his august majesty’s wishes. But then, if he were a professional killer and not simply some outraged partisan, the last words he said might have been a trick, a clever feint to lure your eyes from the true culprit,” he shrugged a little.

_I didn’t mention what his last words were._

“Then again, he might truly have meant them.”

Ursa’s eyes were narrowed. “You think my brother-in-law really would…”

“General Iroh himself?” the spymaster smiled sardonically. “Doubtful. I’ve never known him to be anything less than a man of honor, however poorly he and Prince Ozai might have gotten along. But the former Crown Prince has many supporters, your majesty, and not all of them share his reservations. Or perhaps it could be someone personally outraged by the sight of a woman not of royal blood on the Dragon Throne, regardless of their feelings for the esteemed general. It could even be that someone with an unrelated agenda goaded a genuine supporter of the general to act. There are so many possible suspects. You must know that your ascension has not been warmly received in all quarters.”

“Has it been warmly received in _any_ of them?” she asked.

“Shall I do my duty and give you an honest answer, or do you prefer a pleasant fiction?”

_Setting the tone of our relationship so frankly?_

Ursa closed her eyes briefly. “Do your duty, archivist.”

“No one that I am aware of has greeted the news with anything warmer than surprise and tepid acceptance. Some of Prince Ozai’s former allies prefer you to his brother, in the sense that they don’t particularly like General Iroh. Others are dutiful souls who will obey the old Fire Lord’s instructions simply because he was Fire Lord, or at least to have someone at the top. But no one supports you as _you_. At most they accept you as someone they dislike less than someone else or support your position and you only by extension. You are too much of an unknown quantity to inspire anything more so soon, Lady Ursa.”

“I see,” she sat back in her chair, stapling her fingers. More or less what she had already gathered. “Do you mind if I ask you something a little more personal?”

“By all means.”

“Do _you_ think General Iroh ought to have succeeded Fire Lord Azulon instead of my son, then?”

“Yes,” Li Jie replied at once.

“And I’m sure that you have your reasons.”

“You are an unproven courtier with no history of leadership ruling in the name of a child, my lady. Prince Iroh is neither of those things. I would have preferred a proven and steady hand at the top to an unknown, especially during these trying times of imperial transition. It’s that simple.”

“You’re surprisingly straightforward about it.”

“Telling my liege things that they might not necessarily want to hear has been a crucial part of my role for over twenty years, majesty,” he replied with another slight shrug. “Your exalted predecessor may have disliked some of what I told him over the years, but he knew he could count on me to do what was best for the Fire Nation and the Fire Lord. That’s why I’m standing here, and not rotting in a dark cell somewhere.”

“And you hope I will follow in his footsteps?”

“Of course. Azulon was a great and wise man.”

_Not so much as you believe._

“And may I count on you, then? Knowing that you would rather have seen me shuffled off quietly and my brother-in-law on the throne?”

“If you cannot disassociate your personal feelings from your work, then you have no business in my profession, my lady,” the spymaster smiled faintly. “Fire Lord Azulon’s avowed wishes and the laws of succession laid out since time immemorial clearly mean that the crown passes to Fire Lord Zuko, and his will is that you rule in his name. You are our Fire Lady by right, like it or not. Therefore, I will do all I can to support you.”

 _I really hope you mean that,_ Ursa thought.

“And why would that be?” she asked.

“The Fire Lord – or Fire Lady, as the case may be – is the beating heart of our great nation. The living symbol of our divine order. The source of all our honor. The will of Agni on earth. Duty to you is what binds us all together as the mightiest nation in the world. If people are allowed to plot against you or your son, then the illustrious civilization our forefathers worked so hard to build will crumble into decadent anarchy, and our beloved Caldera City will be reduced to nothing more than another barbarian rat viper pit if it survives at all. I for one have no wish to see that happen.”

The Fire Lady tried to gage his expression, looked for any tells one way or another. But it was no good. Li Jie’s pudgy, unremarkable face gave nothing at all away, and after a moment she gave up trying.

“I’m pleased to hear that I can rely on you,” she told him.

“I will always do my duty, my lady.”

“Then I suppose I have kept you from it for too long,” Ursa gestured with one hand. “You have your task. Please, bring me all the information you can regarding the mysterious knife-thrower.”

“It may take some time, majesty, but you will have what you seek,” Li Jie bowed one last time, then spun on his heels.

The Fire Lady watched him go with an ambivalent expression, her mind weighing the unfamiliar situation as best she could. She didn’t know if, or how far, she could trust this man, or what secrets he might be keeping from her. But then, it wasn’t as though she knew of any other potential sources of information on potential enemies and assassins… or did she? Come to think of it, there was _one_ other person that she knew of who had placed a good deal of value on that kind of knowledge.

* * *

It was midmorning only one day afterwards, and Ursa was again in her new study, this time pouring over a set of freshly arrived reports on the damage inflicted by a recent earthquake near Daomei. A tome on the history and vital statistics of the region lay open beside her, alongside a more confidential dossier taken from Li Jie’s archives on some of the less public realities of the city and its environs. The city’s governor was asking for the crown’s aid in reconstruction and determining just how honest he was being about the state of things would go a long way in deciding just how she should respond to him.

There was a faint rap on the office door, and Ursa looked up from where she was hunched over, blinking a few times to clear some spots from her eyes.

“You may enter,” she said, a few seconds later.

The door creaked only slightly as one of her guards posted outside nudged it ajar. Another man, also in the uniform of the Imperial Firebenders, stepped inside and bowed at the waist. She nodded once, and he rose to stand at attention.

“Your majesty,” the guard began, “as you commanded, we thoroughly searched your late husband’s office and left it bare. His books and personal effects have been removed to a guest chamber to await your discretion, but…”

“But what?” Ursa frowned, eyeing the dark wooden box under his arm.

“We found this concealed in a hidden space beneath a floorboard, itself concealed beneath a decorative plinth by a curtain,” he proffered it to her. “It seemed of more immediate import.”

“I see,” she nodded. “And I appreciate your initiative in bringing it to my attention. Did anyone examine the contents of it?”

“Of course not, my lady,” the masked man shook his head. “We awaited your decision on what to do about it.”

“Again, thank you,” she gestured. “You may leave it on my desk. That will be all for now.”

“Of course, Lady Ursa,” he nodded, and carefully set it down in the spot she had indicated, bowed once at the waist, and then turned and departed.

Once he had shut the door behind him, the Fire Lady examined the little chest. It was simple and unadorned, made of reddish-brown cherry wood with brass hinges and a lock across the front. The key was nowhere to be found, but no matter. In a nation of firebenders, the lock was only there to make certain no one could discreetly steal from it anyway. She set a small flame on the end of two fingers, and carefully burned around the top of the box. It took around a minute of very precise concentration to avoid scorching anything but the wood, but in the end, she was able to cut her way through the roof of Ozai’s tiny chest. She removed a hunk of wood, blackened and smoking at the edges, and set it aside.

Inside the chest were a number of neatly folded sheets of paper, stacked carefully into a pile. Ursa picked up the top one, took a steadying breath, and unfolded it across the desk, expecting some sordid bit of bribery, blackmail, or worse. She was mildly surprised to be reading a fairly unremarkable formal, military-style report on the status of the Siege of Ba Sing Se as of almost two weeks prior from a Colonel Cheung. She had no idea who that was. Ozai had never mentioned him. But from the particulars of the letter she gathered that he had to be a soldier serving under or at least in close proximity to Prince Lu Ten, because there were a number of details relating to her late nephew’s activities on the front, how popular he was becoming with his men for his unwillingness to ask of them what he wouldn’t do himself, and his victories over the earthbenders just past the breach in the outer wall.

Setting that first document down, the Fire Lady reached into the box and removed a second one. It was another report from the same man, dated a little further back, again updating the prince on the goings-on around the front lines at Ba Sing Se, again mentioning how Lu Ten was fairing in the trenches with the rest of them and what parts he was playing in the ongoing assault. Frowning, Ursa set that aside as well and read through the third one. It was another report on the siege, and yet again there was a part of it clearly highlighting the plans and activities of honored second in line for the throne. The fourth proved to be the same thing, merely older. As did the fifth. And the sixth. And the seventh after that. The Fire Nation’s interim ruler spent several minutes pouring over every document in Ozai’s hidden box and discovered to her mounting unease that they were all like that. A series of reports straight from the front, dating back to just over a year and half ago when the siege was still picking up momentum.

There was nothing overtly untoward in any of them, of course. No suggestions of any particular course of action. Merely regular updates on the campaign as it escalated, with particular and increasing emphasis on the location and activities of Prince Lu Ten. It would be easy to claim that they were merely an expression of an uncle’s quiet affection for his only nephew, and a desire to keep an eye on him while he was far away. No doubt that would have been line taken had they by some mischance been discovered while Ozai was still alive. The Fire Lady knew her former husband better than to actually believe that he had been capable of such a thing for a very long time.

But then, why have these at all? Why hide them? Besides faking a concern that she knew perfectly well he didn’t feel, the only other use for such reports would be spying on a political rival, but there didn’t seem to be much that would be useful as blackmail in here. These letters recorded no scandalous dalliances with locals, no derelictions of duty, no treasonous remarks about his grandfather. So, what was the point of continuing to receive them over so many months? Unless…

She felt a chill run down her spine, and then shook her head.

_He wouldn’t… Azulon would have been… the consequences would be…_

Ursa’s mind brought her back a few days, back to the unbelievably audacious request Ozai had made of Azulon, directly after the demise of his own nephew. She thought back to the coldness in his voice, the indifference on his face, when she had confronted him over the demanded murder of his son. She remembered the eagerness that had shone in his eyes only when she had proposed the death of his father and his own ascension to the throne. Her face went pale as she processed the implications.

He _would_.


End file.
